German prosecutors have dropped their investigation into allegations of insider trading at Air Berlin, clearing chief executive Joachim Hunold and chairman Johannes Zurnieden as well as three other senior executives.

The inquiry by the public prosecutor of Stuttgart began more than a year ago and related to the acquisition of Air Berlin shares ahead of the carrier’s disclosure that it planned to acquire Munich-based budget airline DBA.

But Air Berlin says that the investigation has been dropped through lack of evidence. Hunold has rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing by the carrier’s management team.

Air Berlin revealed its intention to take over DBA on 17 August 2006. The prosecutor had claimed that six individuals were linked with a €1.5 million ($2.3 million) purchase of Air Berlin shares before the information was made public.

Hunold had purchased €471,000 worth of shares

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.