The Higher Regional Court of Vienna (Oberlandesgericht Wien, or OLG) acquitted former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Monday of having made false statements during an inquiry before parliament. The court’s three judges relieved the conservative of a 2024 conviction, which charged Kurz with giving false evidence during the so-called “Ibiza” proceedings.

It overturned the former instance’s ruling, which had deemed Kurz as purposefully downplaying his role in improperly influencing the appointment of Thomas Schmid as the sole head of the newly created state holding company ÖBAG and sentenced him to an eight-month probationary prison sentence in 2024.

During the 2019 inquiry, the committee sought to investigate whether he was secretly involved in the appointment of executives of the company while in office as chancellor, drawing allegations of political cronyism and abuse of power. Responding to the question of whether he was involved, he had replied: “Yes, I was involved, in the sense that I was informed.” The OLG’s acquittal was now based on the interpretation that he had not replied incorrectly by affirmatively saying “yes,” which would not fulfill the definition of the charge of giving a false statement under §288 of the Austrian Penal Code.

The 2019 “Ibiza” investigations related to a scandal 2019 that emerged after two politicians of the right-wing FPÖ were secretly caught on camera offering the exchange of government contracts for the purchase of the Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung, as the politicians sought positive coverage.

Whether the prosecution will charge him with further crimes based on allegations that he used public money to pay for favorable media coverage and to fund polls that exaggerated support for him is still uncertain.

Kurz served twice as the chancellor of Austria, initially from December 2017 to May 2019 and then a second time from January 2020 to October 2021. He also served as Chairman of the FPÖ from 2017 to 2021 and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2017.  He withdrew from politics in 2021, however, the court sentence marks a success on the way to a possible political comeback. Since quitting, Kurz has been involved in several business ventures, including Dream cybersecurity company, which he co-founded in 2023 with partners including the former boss of Israel’s NSO firm, which had developed the controversial Pegasus spyware.