AMF France v. A and X (insider trading; all charges rejected, 2005)

Dismissed

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 5, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, in a single reading of the French decision; an independent second reading of 60 of the AMF records agreed on every field for 54 and on the core fields for 59. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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On 21 April 2005 the AMF Commission des sanctions rejected all charges against the chief executive A of a listed company X and the company itself, over optimistic forecasts in 2001 and A's share sales in late October 2001. It found A held inside information only from 22 to 30 October 2001 and that his sales in that window were not shown to be driven by it.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The second section of the Commission des sanctions of the AMF decided the matter on 21 April 2005 after a hearing on 14 April 2005. Grievances had been notified on 15 January 2004 to A and to company X, a technology company listed on the Nouveau Marché whose share price fell about 96 per cent during 2001.

X and A were charged with giving inaccurate and misleading information in 2001, including sales and results forecasts, and A with using inside information when selling shares.

The Commission found the forecasts of a return to profit were over-optimistic and had been revised too little and too late, but held they were presented as expectations based on objective elements, had not distorted the market, and so were not misleading information. On insider dealing, it held A had held inside information only between 22 and 30 October 2001, after the auditors flagged tight cash and an expected loss of about EUR 6.9 million, later published on 31 October. It found his sales in that window were not shown to have been prompted by that knowledge: he had been selling since summer 2000 to raise cash after a pay cut and to lend the company about EUR 90,000, and the price rose afterwards.

It cleared A and X completely and ordered publication. No financial penalty or other sanction was imposed.

The record shows an unsuccessful charge, not a finding of wrongdoing, and the decision does not say whether it was later reformed or annulled on appeal. The AMF anonymised the respondents as A and X.

This library tags the matter as insider trading (alleged conduct; all charges were rejected). The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the decision.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2005-04-21 Commission des sanctions decision

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• AMF decision page
• Decision (PDF, French)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 5, 2026. submit a correction.