OSLO (AFP) - Norwegian authorities ordered the nation's leading bank on Wednesday to pay more than four million dollars in fines and penalties for insider trading in 2008, at the start of the global financial crisis.

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DnB NOR is accused of selling treasury bills on October 9 and 10, 2008, shortly before Norway launched, on October 12, a bank bailout to be funded by a massive emission of new treasury bonds.

The bailout had been drawn up by the Norwegian government after consulting with DnB NOR and other banks, and caused the value of bonds to drop.

Norway's economic and environmental crime agency, Oekokrim, said in a statement the bank must pay a 12-million-kroner (1.5-million-euro, 2.05-million-dollar) fine and reimburse another 14 million kroner.

The agency raided DnB NOR's headquarters shortly after the October 2008 events.

Oekokrim dropped insider trading charges against two bank employees.

The bank said it would accept the fine, but denied any wrongdoing.

"We have now spent one and a half years on this case, and it has been a heavy burden for the employees involved and for the bank," the bank's spokesman Trond Bentestuen said in a statement.

"Now we wish to put the matter behind us by accepting the fine," Bentestuen said.

The Norwegian state controls 34 percent of DnB NOR.