AMF France v. X, A, B, Y, Z and W (price manipulation, 2006)

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 9 March 2006 the AMF Commission des sanctions found that B, using powers of attorney on accounts of company X and investor A, had run a method of rapidly placing and cancelling orders in penny stocks between January 2003 and August 2004. It fined X EUR 7,114,668, A EUR 1,770,480 and B EUR 750,000 and cleared three brokers.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

€9.6m

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 Commission des sanctions of the AMF decided the matter on 9 March 2006 after a hearing that day (A, though summoned, did not attend). The case came from a COB inquiry opened on 10 September 2003, which found that from late 2002 and in the first half of 2003 intraday interventions had been made, mostly through broker Y and less through Z and W, in low-priced shares near EUR 1. Grievances were notified on 24 February 2005 to X, A and B and to the three brokers.

The notices alleged that B, a friend of A with powers of attorney over all accounts of X and A (and later co-director of X), had followed a particular method, placing 17,457 buy orders on X's and A's accounts at broker Y between 1 January 2003 and 27 August 2004, of which 10,873 (62.28 per cent) were cancelled unexecuted, and 16,636 sell orders, of which 9,444 (56.77 per cent) were cancelled, yielding a net gain of EUR 2,929,564 over 148 sessions. The brokers were charged with weak controls.

The Commission rejected the defence arguments and held that the pattern of cancelling and replacing orders showed the aim of not having them executed and of hindering free price formation, in breach of the manipulation rules, and imposed the penalties above on X, A and B.

It cleared brokers Y, Z and W, finding that they could not on their own information have identified the method, that cancellations were allowed by exchange rules, and that for W some grievances lacked a legal basis.

The record does not show the precise mechanics of the method, which the decision describes at length, and 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. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2006-03-09 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.