According to the Stockholm Stock Exchange’s listing agreement, information provided by a listed company must be correct, relevant and reliable. In a press release dated June 9, 2004, Sign On informed the market of an agreement it had reached concerning the acquisition of Svea Ekonomi. This information had a positive impact on Sign On’s share price. The press release did not contain any details stating that the transaction was conditional upon the completion of a due diligence [1] process or that the parties were entitled to cancel the agreement if it was not possible to reach agreement during this process. Accordingly, the only conclusion that could be drawn from the press release was that the agreement was definitive and irrevocable. However, this did not prove to be the case.
In a press release dated August 10, 2004, Sign On announced that the company did not intend to complete the planned acquisition because the principal owner of Svea Ekonomi had chosen to cancel the agreement by imposing new conditions for completing the transaction.