The breaches relate to lack of compliance with formal requirements such as not listing the date, time or correct time for when a number of persons were given access to inside information, not informing all individuals about the duties related to holding inside information and not listing the reason why they had access to such information. In addition, two primary insiders in the company were not included on the list of insiders.
Økokrim (the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime) has confirmed that they do not suspect that anyone has traded on or misused information from Statoil prior to the stock market announcement of 16 August 2011.
Statoil has cooperated actively with Økokrim to resolve this matter.
Statoil takes the handling of inside information very seriously and maintained a continuous overview of persons with access to information prior to the announcement 16 August 2011. Statoil has clear procedures and processes in place to ensure compliance with the requirements under the Securities Trading Act. Unfortunately, in this case, some of these procedures were not adequately followed.
Following this incident Statoil has implemented a number of measures, including a further strengthening of our procedures and the quality assurance of insider lists.