A Finnish company is accused of manipulating the results of tests on its winter and summer tires to ensure it achieved the top spot, according to a report in the business daily Kauppalehti. That in turn helped sales and supported the share price, boosting the value of the company leadership’s stock options.
Nokian Renkaat is a Finnish tire maker that was once part of the same group of companies as the phone maker Nokia. For years under former CEO Kim Grahn the company would send modified tires that were not even in production to be tested by motoring media.
"When the testing organisations bought Nokian Renkaat tires from a retailer, they wouldn’t do as well in the test," KL quotes one source familiar with the matter as saying.
The source claims that the manipulation continues under new CEO Ari Lehtoranta, but the company denies that. Lehtoranta admitted to Kauppalehti that there had been discrepancies in the firm’s test practices, but said that the firm no longer tries to manipulate their results.
Just after midday on Friday, Nokian Renkaat shares were down 6 percent from the start of the day and trading at 30.19 euros.