AMF France v. LVMH Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton (undisclosed stake building in Hermès, 2013)

Judgment entered

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On 25 June 2013 the Commission des sanctions found that LVMH built up a stake in Hermès of about 17 per cent through cash-settled equity-linked swaps that it converted into shares in October 2010, without telling the market of the plan, and gave unclear information on its exposure in its accounts. It fined LVMH EUR 8 million.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

€8m

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), sitting in plenary formation, decided the case on 25 June 2013. The respondent is LVMH Moët Hennessy-Louis Vuitton.

LVMH had held about 4.9 per cent of Hermès International since 2001 and 2002. During 2008 it entered several equity-linked swap contracts, through subsidiaries and with three banks, that gave it economic exposure to Hermès shares without owning them, and that were meant to be settled in cash. In October 2010 LVMH had the swaps unwound early and the shares delivered, and on 23 October 2010 announced a total of 18,017,246 Hermès shares, 17.1 per cent of the capital, which surprised the market.

The notification of grievances alleged that LVMH gave the public inaccurate, imprecise or insincere information about the accounting treatment of the Hermès shares it held directly and the swaps, and that it did not inform the market of the preparation of the financial operation of taking a stake of over 10 per cent of voting rights and 15 per cent of capital. The Commission upheld both. On the first, it found the shares were booked under two separate headings and the risk disclosures did not show that the equity risk, about EUR 983 million of EUR 1.1 billion at end 2008, was concentrated on a single stock, a presentation it considered chosen to avoid questions. On the second, it held the plan to acquire the shares was sufficiently defined from 21 June 2010 for the duty to inform the public to apply.

It imposed a EUR 8 million fine and ordered publication, citing the policy of opacity maintained at each stage of the build-up.

This record does not show whether the decision was appealed, or how the stake was financed. The Commission's findings concern the information given to the market, not any price manipulation, and the tag is ours.

This library tags the matter as undisclosed control blocks. 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.

• Undisclosed control blocks — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2013-06-25 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.