District Court of Oulu dismisses charge over ditch clearing after suspension order

The District Court of Oulu dismissed a charge against Pohjankajo Data Oy over ditch clearing carried out after a regulator ordered preparatory work to stop. It denied the Finnish public prosecutor's request for a finding of corporate criminal liability and imposed no corporate fine.

The dispute turned on an exception in the regulator's direction: necessary maintenance of existing drainage could continue. The court concluded that the prosecution had not proved the company's work went beyond that exception.

A contemporaneous site manager's note established that a machine cleared an existing ditch after the direction and recorded the purpose as managing standing water. But the note gave no measurements or description of excavation and did not establish that the ditch was extended or new drainage created.

The court said machine clearing could be consistent with either ordinary maintenance or more extensive preparatory work. Because the direction expressly permitted some maintenance, neither the use of a machine nor the timing of the clearing was enough on its own to prove prohibited work.

The company's account did not independently prove that the work was necessary or limited to loose material. But the prosecution bore the burden of proving the criminal elements; uncertainty in the company's explanation could not fill the gap in its evidence.

The direction did not define the maintenance boundary in detail, but that alone did not decide the case. The court said it did not need to define the boundary for every possible activity: on this record, the prosecution had not shown why the recorded clearing fell outside the exception.

The prosecutor argued that the work had to be assessed against the direction rather than accepted as maintenance simply because the company called it that. In final submissions, however, the prosecutor acknowledged that the note did not show how much work was done and that there was no reliable proof it exceeded permitted maintenance.

Pohjankajo Data Oy said it cleared the existing ditch to manage standing water, which it understood to be necessary maintenance. It denied extending or creating drainage and asked the court to reject the charge and fine claim.

The regulator had directed the company to suspend environmentally significant preparatory work while an assessment remained incomplete, while allowing necessary maintenance of existing drainage. The exact wording of the direction is not available in the supplied record.

The decision rests on a failure of proof, not an independent finding that the company's account of necessity was verified. The court ordered no payment between the parties.