AMF France v. A, B, C, D, E (insider trading, 2009)

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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In September 2009 the AMF's Commission des sanctions cleared five individuals of using inside information about a possible sale of a shareholder's stake in the property company Gecina, finding the evidence of insider dealing insufficient. A separate, supplementary charge against one of them was sent back for a later hearing.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

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 Commission des sanctions of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF, France) heard the case on 21 September 2009 and decided the same day. The charges had been notified to the five respondents, published as A to E, in August 2006.

The notifications of grievances alleged that each respondent had used inside information about the probable buyout, by the Spanish group Metrovacesa, of the stake held by AGF in Gecina, at a price above the market price. Gecina was a French listed property company whose shares traded on Euronext Paris, and Metrovacesa had launched an alternative takeover offer for it in March 2005.

The Commission found the charge not made out against any of them. For the one respondent whose purchases were examined in detail, it noted that the amount involved was lower than the notification had stated, that the listed property sector was widely seen as promising at the time, that the purchase was not out of character for him, and that a bank research note had recommended the stock. What remained against him was only that he had given investigators inaccurate information about foreign accounts, which did not by itself amount to the set of indicators needed to show that inside information alone could explain his trades.

It therefore put all five out of the case (mis hors de cause) and ordered publication of the decision in a form protecting their anonymity. It deferred one additional charge, notified to E in July 2007 under a different rule of the AMF's general regulation, to a later session.

This record does not show how the deferred supplementary charge against E was resolved, whether the decision was appealed, or the identity of any respondent, since the AMF anonymised them. A clearance here is a finding that the evidence did not establish the breach, not a finding that nothing improper happened.

This library tags the matter as 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 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. 2009-09-21 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.