Oil and gas company OMV's Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer (in picture) was charged with insider trading after buying shares in the company a week before a major divestment, according to Bloomberg. The court is following the recommendations of Austria’s financial regulator FMA, which in April 2009 asked for information from the CEO after he bought 26,500 shares in the company on March 23, 2009, a week before announcing the sale of Vienna-based OMV’s 21.2 percent stake in Mol Nyrt.

“I am convinced that I bought the shares correctly and that I obeyed all rules,” Ruttenstorfer said in a telephone interview, denying any wrongdoing. He expects the company’s supervisory board to examine the charges, he said. Ruttenstorfer, 60, has been chief executive of central Europe’s biggest energy company since 2002. He is due to retire at the end of March.

OMV is the mother company of Romanian Petrom, owning 51 percent of the local company.

editor@romania-insider.com