The Supreme Court (HD) of Finland has granted the partial state of appeal for the mining company Talvivara's former CEO and Chairman of the Board, Pekka Perä, and the company's former production manager, Lassi Lammassaari.
A state of appeal has been granted to the extent of the interpretation of the Penal Code's Environmental Destruction.
The question of interpretation is whether the environmental degradation criterion has been met in a situation where the discharge of sewage from the mine has contained significantly higher levels of environmentally harmful substances than the company estimated in its application for environmental permits, but no exact emission limits for the substances in question have been set in the granted environmental permit.
An additional state of appeal must be considered.
HD also granted permission to Perä in a matter relating to the court proceedings.
Hannu Natunen, who has been Executive Vice President and Production Director of the Company, has also applied for a state of emergency. The Supreme Court has not yet considered its application.
In the exceptional environmental prosecution of the mining company Talvivaara in Sotkamo, Kajanaland, events in the period 2004-2013 have been dealt with.
After the mining operation in Talvivaara was started, it appeared that in the wastewater from the mine there were environmental harmful levels of sodium, sulphate and manganese. Rovaniemi Court of Appeal has considered that the environmental permit was not entitled to emissions if the actual emissions were significantly different from what the applicant stated when applying for the environmental permit.
Supreme Court has sentenced Perä to a 6-month conditional prison sentence for gross environmental degradation and Lammassaari to 60 daily fines for environmental degradation.
