Press release 13.7.2009 – 13/2009 

FIN-FSA issues a public reprimand to Jan Michael Streng for market manipulation 

The Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA) has issued a public reprimand to Jan Michael Streng for breach of the market manipulation ban. Streng gave opposing purchase and sale orders on behalf of Investment Portfolio Management Oy and Oy Manicas Ab in shares of GeoSentric Plc, on 22 December 2008 and 29 December 2008. However, as no genuine change of ownership or change of benecial ownership of the securities was involved in the orders, the transactions were false i.e. wash trades and as such gave false and misleading information on the supply and demand of the shares.

The companies participating in the transactions did not own the shares subject to trading, so  there was no transfer of shares from seller to buyer. On the basis of investigations, FIN-FSA considers that, at the time Streng placed the first orders, he already knew that the trades would be made in the opposing direction. Hence, the transactions undertaken were not genuine. Nevertheless, the transactions resulted in a book profit of EUR 100,000 to one of the companies and a book loss of EUR 100,000 to the other.

The Securities Markets Act prohibits market manipulation. Market manipulation means false or misleading transactions, misleading orders to buy or sell or other business transactions or actions which give false or misleading information on the supply of, demand for or price of a security subject to public trading or trading on a multilateral trading facility.

The purpose of the prohibitions and rules on market manipulation is to promote market transparency and strengthen investors’ confidence in securities markets. The regulations are also designed to ensure a level-playing field between market participants on the basis of the same set of information. Market participants must be able to trust that information available and transactions executed in the markets are real and genuine. The misleading nature of wash trades arises when other market participants do not know that transactions undertaken are not genuine securities trades which would imply the taking of market risk or avoiding the market risk.

The decision on the public reprimand has not yet become legally binding. Jan Michael Streng has the right to appeal against the decision of 30 June 2009 to the Helsinki Administrative Court within 30 days from the time when he was made aware of the decision.

For further information,

please contact Jarmo Parkkonen, Head of Department, tel. +358 10 831 5255 or Sari Helminen, Head of Division, tel- +35810 831 5264

Appendix

FIN-FSA decision (in Finnish)

The Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA is Finland's financial and insurance supervisory authority from 1 January 2009. The objective of the Financial Supervisory Authority's activities is to enable balanced operations of credit institutions, insurance and pension companies and other supervised entities in stable financial markets, to protect the rights of the insured and foster public confidence in financial market operations. The Financial Supervisory Authority operates in connection with the Bank of Finland but is independent in its decision making. The FIN-FSA has 210 employees.