AMF France v. A (analyst manipulation, 2017)

Judgment entered

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In May 2017 the AMF Commission des sanctions fined a financial analyst, published as A, 100,000 euros and banned him from analyst activity for ten years for personal trading in breach of employer rules and for a Vallourec note published without disclosing his position. Charges of using inside information on recommendations were not established.

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

€100k

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 2nd section of the Commission des sanctions heard the case on 21 April 2017 and decided it on 29 May 2017. The grievances, notified on 15 April 2016, concerned a financial analyst published as A, who worked at the research arm of Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, later Kepler Cheuvreux.

The AMF alleged three things. First, that A broke his employer's rules banning analysts' personal trades and requiring declaration of securities accounts, by trading 76 securities between 22 February 2012 and 31 March 2014 through accounts at ING Direct and IG Markets, for an estimated gain of 411,781 euros. Second, that he used 28 items of inside information by trading ahead of changes or initiations of his firm's investment recommendations. Third, that he spread false information by issuing a note on Vallourec on 5 July 2012 with no mention of a conflict of interest while holding the equivalent of 19,967 Vallourec shares acquired the day before through contracts for difference, closing the position after publication for a gain of 34,158 euros.

The Commission found that A committed a breach of professional obligations and a breach of spreading false information through the undisclosed conflict in the Vallourec note, and held that no intention to mislead was required. It found it was not established that the 28 recommendations were inside information, because no evidence showed a reasonable investor would have used them. It imposed a financial penalty of 100,000 euros and a ban from acting as a financial analyst for ten years, and ordered publication with A anonymised.

The record does not show the outcome of any appeal, and it does not show what the personal trading did to market prices.

This library tags the matter as analyst 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2017-05-29 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.