AMF France v. A and B (insider trading, 2008)

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 9 October 2008 the Commission des sanctions cleared an investor and a corporate-finance adviser of insider trading in the shares of the listed lessor Locindus ahead of the 2006 takeover offer by Credit Foncier de France. It found the evidence did not show that only inside information could explain the purchases.

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 first section of the Commission des sanctions decided this matter on 9 October 2008, after an investigation opened in February 2007 and notifications of grievances sent on 13 February and 19 March 2008. The issuer was Locindus, a property-leasing credit institution listed in Paris, on which Credit Foncier de France announced a takeover bid at EUR 37 a share on 22 November 2006 with Icade also involved.

The AMF alleged that A bought 15,700 Locindus shares between 4 October and 21 November 2006, for a gross gain of EUR 52,019, while holding inside information passed on by B, a partner of an M&A advisory firm: that Credit Foncier and Icade had agreed a preliminary co-operation and sent an indicative offer to take control, information said to be inside information from 13 September 2006.

The Commission accepted that B held the information. But it found it had not been shown that A did. The two had regular professional and personal contacts and lunched together hours before the purchases began, but the Commission said that on its own did not prove much. The position was 37.5 per cent of A's portfolio and nearly twice his other trades in the year, but not out of line with how he managed his portfolio, and A gave an explanation based on his knowledge of the sector, its yield and the share's fall. It concluded it was not shown that only holding the information could explain the buying, and, because A's holding of it was not established, rejected the allegation against B that he passed it on.

It cleared both men and ordered the decision published anonymously. No financial penalty was imposed.

This record does not show that either man was found to have acted improperly: the charges were rejected.

This library tags the matter as insider trading (alleged conduct; the 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. 2008-10-09 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.