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

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.

Report an error in this record (amf-fr-san-2010-04-insider-trading-2009) by email

In January 2009 (as dated in the published decision) the AMF's Commission des sanctions imposed penalties of 2.5 million euros and 1.5 million euros on an investor and his fund-management company for buying shares in an optical-products company on inside information about the imminent sale of its founder's stake in early 2006. Four others were cleared.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

€4m

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 Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF, France) heard the case on 18 December 2008 and, according to the published text, decided on 8 January 2009. The decision carries the number SAN-2010-04, so the date should be treated with some caution.

The notifications of grievances alleged a chain of information: the son of the founder of a listed optical-products distributor passed on the imminent sale of his father's stake to a friend running a fund, who passed it to D, the founder and main shareholder of the management company X. D was alleged to have bought 160,000 shares through a Panamanian foundation between 24 January and 1 February 2006 and to have tipped C, and the company X was alleged to have bought 97,300 shares for a fund and managed accounts between 30 January and 22 February 2006. A further individual was accused of buying on the strength of the tip.

The Commission found that D and X had used the inside information when buying the shares, and imposed 2,500,000 euros on D and 1,500,000 euros on X. It did not accept that the information had been passed on to C or B, whose purchases it found could be explained otherwise (for instance by a broker's recommendation received that morning), and it put A, E, C and B out of the case.

This record does not show how the Commission treated the alleged transmission of information between A, E and D beyond the outcome of clearing them, whether the decision was appealed, or the identities of the respondents, which are anonymised.

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. 2009-01-08 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.