Once hailed as the “wunderkind” of Europe’s conservatives, Kurz resigned as chancellor in 2021 amid a series of accusations.

He was found guilty last year of giving false testimony to a parliamentary inquiry and handed an eight-month suspended jail sentence.

But Kurz, 38, appealed against the verdict, insisting that he was innocent.

“Sebastian Kurz… is acquitted,” a three-member panel of judges said when announcing the decision after hearing Kurz’s appeal.

In his statement in court, Kurz argued that he was interrupted during his testimony and that the judge who convicted him was biased.

“My goal was definitely not to say anything false there,” he told the court.

Kurz was found guilty last year of having misled a parliamentary inquiry probing wide-ranging corruption scandals that brought down his first coalition government with the far right in 2019.

In a separate case, Kurz is still under investigation for corruption.

Prosecutors suspect that Kurz embezzled public money to fund polls skewed to boost his image, and to pay for favourable media coverage.

Since he quit politics in 2021, Kurz has been involved with numerous private international enterprises.

Those include the Dream cybersecurity company he co-founded in 2023 with the former head of Israel’s NSO Group, which developed the controversial Pegasus spyware, and another entrepreneur.

Earlier this year, Dream said it was worth US$1.1 billion.