AMF France v. A (price manipulation, 2016)

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 July 2016 the AMF Commission des sanctions fined an individual, published as A, 250,000 euros for moving prices on Euronext to profit on the Equiduct venue across eleven shares in 2012 and 2013, with a gain of about 150,000 euros.

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

€250k

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 heard the case on 17 June 2016 and decided it on 5 July 2016. The AMF's inquiry covered eleven listed shares, among them April, Ciments Français, Mersen, Séchilienne-Sidec, Silic, Vilmorin, PagesJaunes, Saft, Bolloré, Nexity and Technicolor. The board notified a single grievance on 17 February 2015 to an individual, published as A, after the broker Bourse Direct had closed his account and blocked his orders on the Equiduct venue in June 2013.

The AMF alleged that between 12 September 2012 and 1 August 2013, using his own accounts and those of relatives, A set share prices at an artificial level on Euronext in order to profit on the Equiduct venue and on contracts for difference traded against IG Markets. It counted 3,228 sequences of this kind, 2,885 of which, over 584 stock-days, allegedly moved prices on Euronext.

The Commission found the manipulation established and noted that the manipulative sequences gave A a total gain of 150,291 euros on Equiduct. It declined to count a further 10,800 euros of alleged gains on contracts for difference. It imposed a financial penalty of 250,000 euros.

The record does not show A's account of his strategy, and it does not show whether he appealed.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2016-07-05 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.