Tallinn Circuit Court sentenced Teder to one year and five months in prison, specifying that his prison sentence would not be enforced in full if Teder does not commit a new intentional crime during a two-year probation period.

The circuit court sentenced Korb to one year and two months in prison, likewise specifying that his prison sentence would not be enforced in full if Korb does not commit a new intentional crime during two years of probation.

The Center Party, meanwhile, was sentenced to a pecuniary punishment of €750,000. The court then increased the punishment for the new offense by €250,000 – the amount still outstanding from a previous pecuniary punishment to which the party was sentenced by Harju County Court on September 5, 2019 – bringing the Center Party's aggregate punishment to a total of €1 million.

Tallinn Circuit Court found that the existence of an influence peddling agreement dating back to February 9, 2020 had been established. To that end, the court found that the influence peddling agreement was sufficiently specific, meaning that the expected action had been determined and that this was not some sort of abstract agreement.

The court determined that the donation Teder had offered the Center Party was quid pro quo to Korb, who had promised to influence the mayor of Tallinn. Korb had also expressed acceptance of this so-called donation to that end. Thus, the parties had at least broadly agreed on how and toward what objective someone should start working, the court's judgment stated.

The court found that it had been proven that Teder had offered assets to the Center Party via senior party executive Mihhail Korb in exchange for Korb and the Center Party using their influence over the mayor to ensure that the Porto Franco development would be given an unjustified and unfair advantage in the public interest when applying for an easement with the Tallinn city government.

The court noted that an influence peddling agreement may but need not be explicit, adding that it can also be indirect, but that it must be objectively perceptible.

Tallinn Circuit Court found that on February 9, 2020, when Hillar Teder offered the Center Party the so-called donation during a meeting with party secretary general Mihhail Korb, such an agreement was unambiguously perceptible.

It found that in a situation where this would have been Teder's usual, meaning ideological, donation to the Center Party, there would have been no reason whatsoever to consider or contemplate that it not be associated with prior agreements. Likewise there would have been no need to use expressions of understanding after the donation was made.

Investigative weekly Eesti Ekspress noted (link in Estonian) that Monday's ruling by Tallinn Circuit Court was a pivotal one, as Harju County Court had fully acquitted all of the defendants in the case last fall as Judge Aime Ivanson, who presided over the trial at the time, believed that absolutely no influence peddling occurred whatsoever in connection with the Porto Franco development.

Tallinn Circuit Court judges Orvi Koik, Pavel Gontšarov and Janika Kallin, however, took the completely opposite view.

Among other findings, the circuit court judges determined that the statements Korb had provided the Estonian Internal Security Service (ISS) as a suspect were admissible evidence. The first-tier county court had dismissed Korb's statements as inadmissible on the grounds of his defense lawyer not having been present at the beginning of the interrogation. Korb explained in county court that he hadn't understood at the ISS what was happening with him.

The appellate judges, however, did not believe Korb's version. "It is arbitrary to claim that someone with a higher education doesn't understand that they are providing explanations, i.e. statements, regarding allegations," Eesti Ekspress reported the circuit court's ruling as stating.

Left unchanged by the second-tier court was the county court's previous ruling in the part where €120,000, which was voluntarily deposited in the Prosecutor's Office guarantee account by the Center Party, was returned to the party, as the prosecution had not requested the confiscation of this €120,000 donation to the Center Party in its appeal, and the circuit court did not have the authority to confiscate anything beyond the limits of the appeal if not requested.

Teder, Korb and the Center Party were each fined compensation levies of €1,230.

The circuit court's ruling can be appealed to the Supreme Court of Estonia within 30 days.

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