AMF France v. Morgan Stanley & Co International Plc (price manipulation, 2019)

Judgment entered

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On 4 December 2019 the Commission des sanctions found that Morgan Stanley's European government bond desk bought 1,890 September 2015 French bond futures on Eurex in a quarter of an hour on 16 June 2015 to lift prices just before selling EUR 815 million of French bonds and EUR 340 million of Belgian bonds. It fined the firm EUR 20,000,000.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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Penalty as published

€20m

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 (first section) decided the case on 4 December 2019. The AMF had opened an inquiry into the market for French government bonds (OATs) in December 2015, and the notification of grievances went to Morgan Stanley & Co International Plc in February 2018 after the AMF's board met in plenary session. Six traders were also written to during the inquiry but grievances were notified only to the firm.

The grievance concerned 16 June 2015. Between 9:29 and 9:44 the desk allegedly bought 1,890 September 2015 French bond futures and large numbers of German Bund and Buxl futures on Eurex, then at 9:44 sold EUR 815 million of 17 OATs on MTS France, BrokerTec and through a broker, and EUR 340 million of Belgian bonds on MTS Belgium. The AMF said this fixed the futures and bond prices at an artificial level and used a ruse or device to mislead the market.

The Commission found that the French futures purchase was aimed at pushing up the futures price so that the desk could sell the OATs on better terms, that other market participants moved their quotes upward in response, and that the desk's explanation of unwinding a losing position did not exclude that aim. It found the manipulation made out for the September 2015 French futures, 14 OATs and 8 Belgian bonds, but not for the German futures or for the other OATs, where the link between the desk's trading and the price was not shown. It held that the desk's trades were not a permitted market practice and that, in any case, intent was shown by the way the trades were done.

It fined the firm EUR 20,000,000, stressing its status as a specialist in French Treasury securities, and ordered publication on the AMF website for five years, non-anonymised.

This record does not show how much profit the desk made or whether the decision was appealed, and it does not name the traders.

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. 2019-12-04 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.