AMF France v. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I (insider trading, 2011)

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-2011-04-insider-trading-2011) by email

In February 2011 the AMF's Commission des sanctions fined six individuals a total of 685,000 euros for tipping or trading on advance knowledge of a family holding company's September 2008 takeover bid for a smart-card group, cleared one, and deferred two charges pending further investigation.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

€685k

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) decided the case on 17 February 2011. The charges had been notified in 2010 to nine individuals, A to I.

On 23 September 2008 a family holding company that already held 71.21 per cent of a smart-card and document-printing group, whose shares traded on Euronext Paris, announced a simplified takeover bid at 6.70 euros a share, a 33.7 per cent premium. The AMF noticed abnormal trading before the announcement. The notifications alleged that A told his brother B and his friend C about the plan and that B to I used the information to buy shares.

The Commission found the charges made out against A (disclosure) and against B, C, D, E and F (use). It cleared G, finding for example that his purchases could be explained by his past investing habits. It found that E, a partner in the law firm handling the bid, had exceptional responsibility, and it recorded gains of 49,350 euros for B, 20,707 euros for C, 14,796 euros for D, 94,955 euros for E and 51,672 euros for F.

It imposed penalties of 100,000 euros on A, 100,000 euros on B, 50,000 euros on C, 35,000 euros on D, 300,000 euros on E and 100,000 euros on F. For H and I it postponed its decision pending a supplementary inquiry into H's trades.

This record does not show how the postponed charges against H and I were later decided; that outcome is not part of this decision. It also does not show 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. 2011-02-17 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.