The court considered that the man’s actions were intentional and careless.
The man disconnected the power cord from three telecommunication racks. Devices should not be disconnected from the network in that way. litigation material
The district court of Länsi-Uusimaa has sentenced a man in his fifties to a six-month suspended prison sentence for interfering with telecommunications.
A man who worked in the telecommunications laboratory of Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy disconnected the power cables from three so-called telecommunications cabinets and caused millions of dollars in damage to the company.
The man had worked for the company for 26 years. At the time of the events, in December 2019, he worked as a shop steward and strike watcher.
On the first day of the strike, the man disconnected the power cords of the telecommunication cabinets. The man admitted his actions, but denied intentionality.
According to what he said, he had not known in advance that disconnecting the power cords would also cut off the power supply to devices other than his own.
The man said he was only trying to protect the hardware and the Nokia network.
In fact, his actions caused the company’s 5G connections to go dark worldwide. The eight-hour outage interrupted the work of approximately 20,000 employees.
Careless, but not outrageous
The man was fired a few days after the events. Lauri Olander
Among others, the man’s predecessor was heard as witnesses in court. He said that the wires should not be torn off and the devices that are the responsibility of others should not be touched at all.
The accused man admitted that he acted carelessly. He was in a hurry to go set up the strike tent and hadn’t checked which other servers the routers were connected to.
Thus, the district court considered that the man acted intentionally. However, the act was not outrageous.
The court considered it possible that the man has not been able to understand how much damage his actions would cause. Intentionality therefore does not extend to the scope of the damage, and the financial damage cannot be considered particularly significant.
The man was considered guilty of basic communication interference. He must compensate Nokia’s legal costs for more than 15,000 euros.
The judgment is not binding.