AMF France v. A, X and GEM Investments America LLC (price manipulation and insider trading, 2015)

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.

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In June 2015 the AMF Commission des sanctions fined GEM Investments America, the issuer X and its chief executive A a total of 1.6 million euros for misleading releases, insider dealing and a price manipulation episode around an equity-line financing.

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

€1.6m

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 1st section of the Commission des sanctions decided this case on 5 June 2015. The respondents were a company published as X, its chief executive A, and the investor GEM Investments America LLC. X made container-handling vehicles and traded on Alternext from June 2010.

In March 2011 X agreed an equity line with GEM under which it could issue shares to GEM at a 10% discount to a recent average price, and A lent GEM shares as a guarantee. The AMF alleged that X gave the public inaccurate information in press releases in 2010 and 2011, notably overstating its order book, that A used inside information and manipulated the price of X shares, and that GEM used inside information.

The Commission found that X's press releases were inaccurate, with an order book overstated by amounts that were not orders. It found that A committed two insider-dealing breaches, avoiding losses of 243,082 euros for himself and 106,382 euros for related property companies, one manipulation of the share price between 15 March and 14 June 2011, and a failure to declare transactions. It found that GEM's sales between April 2011 and January 2012 produced a gain of 551,436 euros and that GEM used inside information, and noted that GEM did not take part in the proceedings.

It imposed 1,000,000 euros on GEM, 100,000 euros on X and 500,000 euros on A, a total of 1,600,000 euros.

The record does not show the exact mechanism of the price manipulation finding, and it does not show whether the decision was appealed.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation and 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 2 techniques 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.

• Price manipulation — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2015-06-05 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.