(Adds sentencing details, background)
VIENNA (Thomson Financial) - A Vienna court on Friday found nine former
executives of Austrian bank Bawag PSK guilty of breach of trust as the nearly
one-year-long trial on the bank's loss of more than 1.4 billion euros came to an
end.
Of the two principal defendants, former chief executive Helmut Elsner was
sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison, and the bank's former business
associate, Wolfgang Floettl, received two-and-a-half years, of which 10 months
will be spent in prison and 20 months on parole, the Austrian press agency APA
reported.
Elsner's successor at the bank, Johann Zwettler, was sentenced to a
five-year prison term.
The defendants and the public prosecutor have the right to appeal the
convictions and sentences.
Bawag sustained massive losses through a series of speculative deals in the
United States and the Caribbean. The presiding judge in the trial estimated the
overall damage caused to the bank by Elsner's misuse of his authority as CEO was
1.72 billion euros, APA reported.
The Austrian trade union association OeGB sold Bawag to a consortium headed
by U.S. private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management for more than 3 billion
euros in Decemember 2006.
peter.klopf@thomsonreuters.com
pkl/kf1
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