Court fines sawmill company and managers after worker is injured

A district court has fined sawmill company Binderholz Nordic and three of its managers over a workplace accident at the Kevätniemi sawmill in Lieksa, Yle reports.

In February 2025, a worker clearing a blockage on a planing line got a hand trapped between two boards. The worker injured a finger.

The defendants argued that the worker had not followed safety instructions, which required the line to be switched off before handling the boards. The court said the instructions did not change the employer’s responsibility: machinery must primarily be protected with technical safeguards, and the planing line did not have them.

The company was ordered to pay a 30,000-euro corporate fine for an occupational safety offence. The sawmill’s managing director, production director and production manager each received 30 day-fines for occupational safety offences and causing bodily injury. The injured worker did not seek compensation. The ruling is not final.

Yle is not publishing the convicted managers’ names because the sentences are minor. The case is the second workplace accident at the Kevätniemi sawmill to result in convictions this year. In May, the company and one manager were fined over a 2023 accident in which a man died and another person was injured when a loader carrying logs collided with a van being used for maintenance work in the sawmill’s log yard.