OMV CEO Acquitted Of Insider Trading In High-Profile Court Case

The chief executive of OMV AG (OMV.VI), Central Europe's largest oil and gas company, was Thursday acquitted of charges for insider trading in connection with a personal share buy in 2009 that coincided with a major divestment.

Judge Claudia Moravec-Loidolt late Thursday declared Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer "not guilty" in insider trading in connection with a company shares buy a few days ahead of a large divestment of a stake holding in another company.

"It was not a classic case of insider trading," Moravec-Loidolt said, explaining that she couldn't establish a causality between the stake sale and the share buy, and that the information in question wasn't sufficiently solid to be regarded insider information.

Ruttenstorfer had faced up to three years in jail if found guilty.

State Prosecutor Michael Schoen had specifically alleged that Ruttenstorfer's purchase of EUR620,000 worth of OMV shares on March 23, 2009, had given him an illegal total purchase price advantage of EUR44,000, because Ruttenstorfer already knew at the time that OMV was about to sign a deal to sell a 21.2% stake in its Hungarian peer MOL Nyrt, a deal that made OMV's share price surge about 3% on the day.

The case has been closely followed in Austria, where the formerly state-owned energy company is one of the strongest national brands and 60-year old Ruttenstorfer is held in high regard.

Ruttenstorfer is due to retire at the end of March after having worked with OMV since 1976, the last eight years as CEO.

-By Flemming E. Hansen, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail]