AMF France v. Soufflet Négoce (marking the close, 2018)

Judgment entered

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On 16 July 2018 the Commission des sanctions found that grain trader Soufflet Négoce placed 25 tiny sell orders in the last seconds before the close on a thinly traded wheat futures contract in 2014, to push down the settlement price and reduce its unrealised losses. It fined the company EUR 100,000.

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 Commission des sanctions of the Autorité des marchés financiers (second section) decided the case on 16 July 2018, after a hearing on 8 June. The AMF's market surveillance had spotted suspicious sell orders from Soufflet Négoce in the first half of 2014, and an inquiry into the MATIF wheat contract was opened in January 2015. The notification of grievances went to the company in October 2016.

The grievance alleged that on 25 sessions between 11 February and 19 June 2014 the company placed a sell order for the September 2015 milling-wheat future in the last ten seconds before the close, close to the best bid, for the smallest possible quantity and valid only for the day. These orders were said to be unintended for execution, to have given misleading signals about supply and a false picture of the market, and to have pushed the clearing (closing) price down.

The Commission found that the orders had almost no chance of execution in such an illiquid, distant contract, that none was executed, that 84 per cent of the orders in those last ten seconds were the company's and sat within two ticks of the best bid, and that other participants reacted to them. It held they gave misleading indications of supply even though each covered a single 50-tonne lot. It dropped the separate charge of orders meant to obstruct price formation at the close, because the later EU rules no longer covered it, and rejected the company's claim of a legitimate purpose. It relied on emails between two of its traders on 19 June 2014, which asked for the closing price to be pushed as low as possible by a method used from time to time, and on the fact that the orders began as unrealised losses appeared.

It fined the company EUR 100,000 and ordered publication on the AMF website for five years, non-anonymised; its request for anonymity was refused.

This record does not show the company's actual gain or avoided loss, and it does not show whether the decision was appealed.

This library tags the matter as marking the close. 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2018-07-16 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.