Sweden charges former CEO and CFO over crypto-licence insider sales

The Swedish Economic Crime Authority charged a former chief executive and chief financial officer of a listed company with aggravated insider trading offences on 2 November 2026. The case is identified as Stockholm District Court B 16085-26.

According to the charges, both executives received Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen) decision on 3 July 2025 to reject their subsidiary’s application under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). They then sold large parts of their company shareholdings before the rejection was disclosed publicly on the afternoon of 4 July. The share price fell by approximately 33% after the disclosure.

What the charges allege

The application sought authorisation for the subsidiary to offer crypto-asset-related services within the EU. The Economic Crime Authority alleges that the two executives deliberately delayed publication of the rejection so they could complete their sales.

“This case is not a circumstantial evidence case,” chief prosecutor Thomas Langrot said, adding that the evidence was “direct and very strong”. The quotations are translated from Swedish.

The case exposes a direct overlap between crypto licensing information and listed-company market conduct. In Atlas’s view, compliance teams at listed crypto businesses should treat access to supervisory decisions, disclosure timing and executive dealing as a single control problem, rather than as separate licensing and securities processes.

The company was also sanctioned by the disciplinary committee of Nordic Growth Market (NGM), where it is listed. The committee ordered it to pay a SEK 200,000 conditional fine over the delayed disclosure.

MiCA began applying in 2024 and establishes a common EU framework for crypto-assets not covered by other EU financial-services rules. The official account says the company’s share price fell by approximately 33% after the rejection was made public.

Recent Swedish market cases

The Economic Crime Authority reported on 16 October that Stockholm District Court had convicted three men over a market-manipulation transaction on Spotlight Stock Market. On 11 September, it reported a Stockholm District Court conviction in Sweden’s first front-running case. The latest charges add alleged insider trading involving crypto-asset authorisation to that recent sequence of securities-market cases.

The matter is identified under Stockholm District Court case number B 16085-26.