The Supreme Constitutional Court has rejected the appeal and upheld the fines imposed by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) on four former senior officials of the now-defunct Laiki Bank: Efthymios Bouloutas, Eleftherios Chiliadakis, Markos Foros and Panayiotis Kounnis. The penalties were issued for misleading statements in the bank’s 2010 financial reports, closing a long-running legal process.
CySEC’s decisions, part of its investigation into the 2013 banking collapse, remain the only ones that resulted in sanctions against bank executives.
The Court confirmed the administrative fines imposed on April 28, 2014: €705,000 for Bouloutas, and €170,000, €90,000 and €430,000 for Chiliadakis, Foros and Kounnis respectively. It ruled that the bank’s exposure to Greek government bonds was not adequately or clearly reflected in the 2010 interim and annual reports, in violation of financial disclosure laws.
The four executives had sought to overturn the fines, claiming bias and lack of justification, but the Court found that due process was followed and that CySEC had acted within its legal supervisory powers, including the authority to penalise misleading or incomplete disclosures.
The ruling also clarified that approval of prospectuses by regulators does not absolve signatories of personal responsibility for the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of information.
The decision is expected to have a wider impact on corporate governance in Cyprus, reinforcing accountability among bank executives and strengthening investor confidence.