Nokia threat to quit Finland 'unless law changed' ?

Mobile phone giant Nokia reportedly threatened to leave its native Finland if a change to laws blocking companies from monitoring employee emails was not introduced, a respected Finnish newspaper said Sunday. Yahoo News! reports.

Nokia subsequently rejected the accusation, telling the STT news agency that "Nokia has in no way threatened to move," claiming the "Helsingin Sanomat article is quite polemic. It contains many mistakes and misunderstandings."

The company generates around 1.3 billion euros (1.7 billion dollars) worth of tax revenues and employs 16,000 people in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat said.

... The daily quoted an unnamed civil servant as telling the paper that "Nokia lobbied very hard for the proposed law to be unanimously approved... (The message) was very clear: if the law was not approved, Nokia would leave Finland."

It seems unlikely Nokia would make such a move based on a law monitoring e-mail, but it would be nice if they actually had.

emily | 4:50 PM | News, Buzz |
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