AMF France v. A, B and C (insider trading, 2019)

Dismissed

✓ 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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On 6 March 2019 the Commission des sanctions dismissed all insider-dealing charges against three individuals who had bought shares of an anonymised company, X, just before an announced takeover offer in June 2014, finding the evidence insufficient to show they held or used inside information. It imposed no sanction.

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

—

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.

What is alleged to have happened

The Commission des sanctions of the Autorité des marchés financiers (second section) decided the case on 6 March 2019. The AMF had opened its inquiry into the shares of a company anonymised as X in August 2014, and notifications of grievances went to A, B and C in March 2017. The decision is anonymised throughout.

The notifications alleged that on 2 June 2014 A bought 101,483 X shares for himself and CFDs for his mother, using inside information about a bid by a company Z to buy a company Y, that he recommended the purchase to D and passed the information to B; that B bought 130,000 shares for clients and 20,000 for himself that day and passed the information to C; and that C bought 10,000 shares on 3 June 2014.

The Commission accepted that A's purchases were unusual for his and his mother's usual investments and well timed. But it held that this was not enough, together with the other evidence, to show that only inside information could explain them. It found that A's account, that his wealth manager B had recommended the purchase in a call on 26 May 2014, could not be disproved, that B's statement to his bank's compliance team was vague and isolated, and that the share was already trending upward. With A's use not established, it also found the recommendation and communication charges not made out, and the charges against B and C fell too.

It put all three out of the case, imposed no sanction, and ordered the decision published in anonymised form.

This record is a dismissal. It does not show that the trading was legitimate, only that the Commission was not satisfied of the charges, and it does not show whether an appeal followed.

This library tags the matter as insider trading (the allegation; the charges were dismissed). 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2019-03-06 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.