Corruption, Estonia, Financial Services, Legislation, Markets and Companies

The court convicted Ivo Parbus (52), current Central Tallinn city district media adviser, former adviser of deputy mayor of Tallinn for repeated acceptance of bribes in 2007-2008 and punished him with real prison time of 2 years and 6 months.

Parbus was at the time the adviser of deputy mayor Taavi Aas whose sphere of operations included among other things city planning, architecture and construction supervision. According to the indictment, Parbus took repeatedly bribes for fulfilling tasks that were a part of his job.

The court convicted Raivo Unt (50), Tallinna Farmaatsiatehas AS, Peeter Palusaar (42), Kaupmehe Arenduse OÜ, OÜ Woody, OÜ Metsailu, OÜ Constancia, AS Merko Ehitus and Aleksander Raide for giving a bribe; Toivo Susi (56), TLS Invest OÜ and businessman Tõnu Korts for repeated giving of bribes and Elmar Sepp (52) and Foundation Jüri Vilmsi Sihtkapital (currently bankrupt) for aiding and abetting to giving bribes.

Korts, board member of several of the abovementioned companies, will have to spend at least 5 months in prison, AS Tallinna Soojus council chairman Elmar Sepp has to spend at least 5 months in prison, TLS Invest board member Toivo Susi 4 months and 27 days, former city official Aleksander Raide 4 months and 27 days in prison.

Tallinna Farmaatsiatehas AS board member Raivo Unt has to serve 3 months at once. All were sentenced longer sentences but they had served some of the time during the investigation and some was on conditional basis. Businessman Peeter Palusaar had already served his sentence during the investigation and he was the only one that was released from the court hall today while everyone else was arrested in court and sent to prison at once.

The corporate persons were all also convicted and the fines they are required to pay range from 50,000 to 300,000 euros each.

Judge Merle Parts said that the court tried Parbus as an official rather than a private individual and in making the decisions took into account the fact that Tallinn city government obstructed with its inactivity construction activities, which forced entrepreneurs to look for alternative ways to solve their problems and enabled Parbus to provide selective construction permit proceedings for bribes.