AMF France v. Groupe X, Y, Z (insider trading, 2011)

Judgment entered

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In March 2011 the AMF's Commission des sanctions fined an IT-services holding company 30,000 euros and its chief executive 20,000 euros for reaffirming profit forecasts in October 2007 that were then reversed, and fined a senior finance manager 40,000 euros for selling shares in June 2008 while knowing of an expected loss.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

€90k

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 31 March 2011. The respondents were Groupe X, a holding company listed on Euronext Paris (compartment C) that owned an IT-services business for small and medium-sized firms, its chairman and chief executive Y, and Z, its management controller and deputy finance director.

The notifications alleged that in a reference document of 12 October 2007, issued for a capital increase, Groupe X and Y repeated the 30 July 2007 forecasts of annual revenue and a return to positive net income although nothing supported them, and that a month later, on 15 November 2007, the company warned of a net loss. The 2007/2008 year ended with revenue of about 329 million euros against 400 million forecast and a net loss of 28 million euros. The AMF also noticed suspicious trading by employees before a June 2008 release.

The Commission found the misleading-information charge made out against Groupe X and Y. It found that Z, who knew by early June 2008 of an expected loss of about 19 million euros not yet public, held inside information while he sold 19,796 shares between 3 and 24 June 2008, avoiding a loss of 20,509 euros. It was not persuaded that he needed the proceeds, and held the breach objectively made out.

It imposed 30,000 euros on the company, 20,000 euros on Y (taking account of his effort to rescue a company in difficulty) and 40,000 euros on Z.

This record does not show how the other suspicious trading by employees was treated, whether the decision was appealed, or the identities of the respondents, which are anonymised. The operating company later filed for insolvency, which the decision cites in setting the holding company's penalty.

This library tags the matter as insider trading (the misleading-forecast charge has no technique page of its own here). 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. 2011-03-31 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.