Finnish businessman Onni Sarmaste ordered to pay nearly €5 million over defective pandemic-era mask deal

A Finnish appeals court has upheld a ruling requiring entrepreneur Onni Sarmaste to pay nearly €5 million in compensation to Finland’s National Emergency Supply Agency (HVK) over a disputed 2020 face mask procurement deal, public broadcaster Yle reports.

The Helsinki Court of Appeal ruled that Sarmaste must repay the original purchase sum of approximately €4.5 million, plus an additional €183,000 to cover HVK’s costs. The decision affirms an earlier district court judgment, concluding that the protective masks and surgical face coverings supplied by Sarmaste failed to meet agreed safety standards.

Testing by the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland confirmed that the filtration efficiency of the delivered masks was “significantly below” the required specifications, rendering them unusable for their intended purpose. The court determined that Sarmaste either understood—or should have understood—the severity of the contract breach and its impact on HVK’s emergency preparedness efforts.

The agency had argued that the poor quality of the protective equipment justified terminating the contract, as further deliveries would not have met acceptable standards. The court rejected Sarmaste’s claims that HVK bore responsibility for verifying market conditions or potential defects in the masks.

The dispute stems from a March 2020 agreement to procure respiratory protective equipment from China during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, accredited testing laboratories in Finland were unavailable, and overseas facilities were overwhelmed, prompting HVK to rely on VTT’s emergency assessments.