According to the Schwyz cantonal prosecutor’s office, the investigation is at an early stage.
Going bankrupt the main owner of the drifted technology company Uros Jyrki Hallikainen is also under criminal investigation in Switzerland.
Prosecutor ‘s Office of the Canton of Schwyz Patrick Bischoff confirms to STT that a criminal investigation is underway into Hallikainen, but does not comment further.
“The investigation is still in its infancy. No other information about the schedule can be provided, ”Bischoff said.
According to STT’s information, Hallikainen has been reported as a criminal by an investor living in Switzerland, to whom Hallikainen traded a small stake in Uros for a million euros in the summer of 2020. As Bischoff does not comment further on the suspicion of a crime, the STT has not been able to confirm that the criminal report and the investigation are related. However, the crime report was made to the same department in which Bischoff works and which deals with, among other things, financial crimes.
STT said last month that Hallikainen sold small pieces of Uros for millions of euros before the company’s behind-the-scenes collapse. According to STT’s data, the report of the crime concerns the largest deal, when in the summer of 2020 Hallikainen sold about a 20% stake in Uros to a very wealthy investor living in Switzerland for about EUR 20 million. The sale price means that Hallikainen determined the value of his company at that time to be approximately two billion euros.
Jyrki Hallikainen
BTI did not reach Hallika to comment on the matter.
Assignmenta About Uros’ profitability Hallikainen presented the investor with unaudited figures for 2019, according to which Uros had a turnover of almost EUR 2.7 billion and an operating profit of approximately EUR 170 million. The figures for 2020 were even more staggering: according to them, Uros made a net profit of almost EUR 66 million in the third quarter with a turnover of more than EUR 1.4 billion.
In addition to an investor living in Switzerland, Hallikainen also managed to sell small shares in his company to two other experienced investors, according to STT. One Finnish investor has since managed to cancel the deal and get his money back, as the agreement included a condition for the involvement of a large private equity investor. When that did not happen, the investor got back about five million euros.
In February of this year, Uros was declared bankrupt at the request of several creditors. According to the district court, Uros had debts of at least almost EUR 13.5 million and cash of about EUR 14,000 at that time.
Also the progress of the bankruptcy case has stalled. Hallikainen did not sign the liquidation of the bankruptcy estate within the original deadline, which is why the deadline for it has been extended until mid-June.
The list of nests is a statement by a representative of the company as to what assets and liabilities the company has had at the time of the bankruptcy. Liquidator Sami Uoti says the situation is exceptional.
“It is unfortunate that Hallikainen has not returned the list of nests – which has been sent to him. That is why the deadline has had to be extended a couple of times, ”says Uoti.
Jyrki Hallikainen, the main owner of the bankrupt technology company Uros, is an upstairs apartment in a house in the village of Wollerau in Bäch, Switzerland, on April 22, 2022. Hallikainen is a businessman with an Oulu background who has lived abroad for a long time, first in Belgium and then in Switzerland. Last autumn, Hallikainen announced his domicile in Liechtenstein. However, according to the Swiss real estate authority, he still owns an apartment in the lavish Wollerau house where he has lived for a long time.
According to Uoti, Hallikainen has representatives in Finland with whom the discussions have gone quite well.
“But how can I say this politely, the feedback from Hallikainen has been very limited, if at all.”
Uoti is also considering possible coercive measures that can be imposed on a debtor who defaults under the Bankruptcy Act.
“In the primary (bankruptcy law) there is a penalty payment,” then a travel ban and also imprisonment can be demanded.
In Finland Hallikaista and the founder of Uros in 2011 with him Tommi Uharia suspected gross fraud in the activities of the Lord. The sacrifice left Ur some years ago.
Due to the investigation, the assets of Hallikainen and Uhar have been jointly and severally seized for more than six million euros. Chief Investigator, Crime Commissioner Timo Heikkinen STT told STT that a preliminary investigation was still pending and that an extension would be sought for the seizure of the security.
The grant fraud investigation is related to the millions of euros in product development loans and grants granted by Business Finland, ie the then Tekes, to Uros in 2011–2013. According to Business Finland, Uros concealed from the financier agreements under which the results to be developed or achieved in the financed projects were sold and handed over to a Luxembourg subsidiary.
“The company has applied for and received financing for the presented license business, which according to the information it has not had any intention to carry out,” Business Finland said in a statement to the Helsinki Administrative Court, where Uros appealed against Business Finland’s decision to order immediate repayment.
Hallikainen is a businessman with an Oulu background who has lived abroad for a long time, first in Belgium and then in Switzerland. Last autumn, Hallikainen announced his domicile in Liechtenstein.
During the years of growth, Hallikainen owned the company with his family members. The company’s Board of Directors was also held by the family district, and Hallikainen served as Chairman of the Board.
In March last year, Uros announced that it would move its head office from Finland to Switzerland, where it had established a new parent company, Uros Ag, at the end of 2020. In Switzerland, business owners do not have public information.
Before that, at the beginning of 2021, Hallikainen transferred the majority of his property in Finland to his then wife. Tarja Hallikainen names. The case is evident from the documents in the foreclosure dispute between Hallikainen and Nordea, which is pending in the Oulu District Court.
According to Nordea, Jyrki Hallikainen’s intention has been to transfer his assets out of the reach of creditors. According to Hallikainen, the transfer of property is a division made in connection with a divorce.
Nordea believes that Jyrki Hallikainen already knew about Uros’ payment difficulties at the time of the partition in January 2021. According to Nordea, a report from the auditing firm BDO shows that payment difficulties began in December 2020 at the latest.