Allegedly, it paid bribes to public officials to obtain licences for its subsidiary, Azercell, but prosecutors said they couldn’t prove their claims.

This, though, still leaves Telia, and other companies, entangled in an investigation linked to corruption in Uzbekistan, where they allegedly paid hundreds of millions of US dollars to obtain licences.

The beneficiary of the bribes is said to be Gulnara Karimova, the once-extravagant eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

VimpelCom, an Amsterdam- based Russian company, has already settled its Uzbek bribery case with US and Dutch courts by paying a penalty of $795m, effectively admitting wrongdoing.

The Uzbek case had negative repercussions across Scandinavia.

In Sweden, perhaps in an effort to erase recent memories, TeliaSonera changed its name, colours and branding and is now registered as Telia Company.

In Norway, heads started rolling last year at the state-owned telecoms company Telenor, which owns 33% in VimpelCom.

CEO Svein Aaser was sacked in November and the Norwegian former CEO of VimpelCom Jo Lunder was arrested a few days later.

Last autumn, both Telia and Telenor said they wanted out of their operations in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, allegedly because of market pressures, but their exit, rebranding and apologies can only really be read as last minute attempts to pull their hands out of the cookie jar.