AMF France v. A and Banque X (price manipulation and insider trading, 2005)

Judgment entered

✓ 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 4 October 2005 the AMF Commission des sanctions found that A, chief executive of listed company Y, had instructed broker Banque X to buy up Y's shares from October 2002 to push the price to EUR 80.50 by the year end, and had bought during a closed period on inside knowledge of good results. It fined A EUR 125,000 and the bank EUR 250,000.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

€375k

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. This regulator states penalties in EUR. The figure is recorded as published and is not converted, so it does not appear in the USD totals or medians used elsewhere on this site.

What is alleged to have happened

The first section of the Commission des sanctions of the AMF, with a substitute member, decided the matter on 4 October 2005. Grievances had been notified on 13 September 2004 to A, chief executive of company Y and head of its family holding company, and to Banque X, which had absorbed a brokerage firm whose Lyon branch executed the orders.

The notices alleged price manipulation, buying Y's own shares in the fortnight before the annual accounts were published, and use of inside information against A; and breaches of market-rules and conduct duties, price manipulation and misuse of a liquidity contract against the bank.

The Commission found that A admitted telling the Lyon branch from October 2002 to buy all shares offered up to a ceiling, to lift the price to about EUR 80, the year-end 2001 level. Purchases by Y and its holding company made up 66.77 per cent of the market between 11 October and 18 December 2002 and 86.97 per cent in the last week of the year; the price rose 43.75 per cent to EUR 80.50 on 31 December 2002. Y bought again on 30 and 31 December, within fifteen days of the 13 January 2003 results, and A knew the results would be very good, which the Commission treated as use of inside information. For the bank, it found the Lyon branch pursued the price rise, transferred a block between the two related buyers, was the only buyer at the open and close on 31 December, and ran small round-trip trades on a liquidity contract that gave an appearance of volume.

It fined A EUR 125,000 and the bank EUR 250,000 (the bank being the absorbing company, only a financial penalty could apply), and ordered publication.

The record does not show the profit made by A or Y, and the Commission described the gain from the information-based buying as small. The decision does not say whether it was later reformed or annulled on appeal. The AMF anonymised the respondents.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation and insider trading. 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 2 techniques 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2005-10-04 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.