PARIS (Satrapia) — A Stockholm court has confirmed the acquittal of Lars Nyberg, former chairman of the Telia telecommunications group, and two partners in the case concerning $320 mln payments made to Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the former president of Uzbekistan.

A court of first instance had acquitted the defendants in February 2019 on the grounds that the individuals did not technically “bribe” Karimova. It was the same legal limitation that saw their acquittal upheld by the appeal court on Thursday. However, during the court proceedings it was not challenged that Karimova was ultimately the beneficiary of the payments made by Telia.

While the prosecution sought to argue that the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars had been corrupt in nature, the court eventually decided not to do so because, according to Swedish legal requirements, Karimova should have been in charge of government decisions regarding telecommunications for the formal definition of corruption to apply. As she did not officially hold a public office related to telecommunications, the court decided that she could not be included “in the narrow circle of persons who may be corrupt under Swedish law”.