The Minister of Labour Market Mats Persson (L) participated, during his time as Minister of Education, in a decision where the government would allocate two billion kronor to a research initiative, which, among others, Ericsson had taken the initiative to.
On the same day the decision was made, Persson bought shares for 11,000 kronor in Ericsson, reports Ekot in Sveriges Radio.
Mats Persson's purchase is now being criticized by Tom Madell, professor of law at Umeå University.
He should have known better. It's basically rule number one to keep an arm's length distance from a market that one has the opportunity to influence, says Tom Madell to Ekot.
Mats Persson does not think he did anything wrong.
When we made the decision, I had no detailed knowledge of what the decision was about, but now that I'm looking into the matter, I can establish that it was initiated by another department, he says to the radio.
