AMF France v. Electricité de France S.A., B and A (false or misleading information, 2020)

Judgment entered

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On 28 July 2020 the Commission des sanctions found that EDF's press release of 8 October 2014 about the European Commission's approval of the Hinkley Point C financing wrongly said the main elements of the 2013 agreements remained unchanged. It fined EDF EUR 5,000,000 and its then chief executive EUR 50,000, and cleared his successor of a disclosure charge.

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

€5.1m

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 decided the case on 28 July 2020. The AMF had opened its inquiry into EDF's financial information in July 2016, and the notifications of grievances were sent in April 2019 to EDF and to its two successive chairmen and chief executives, B and A.

The notifications alleged that, in its press release of 8 October 2014 following the European Commission's state-aid approval for the UK support of the Hinkley Point C nuclear project, EDF said the main elements of the October 2013 agreements remained unchanged. This was alleged to be false or misleading, and the same breach was alleged against B, chief executive until 22 November 2014. A second grievance alleged that EDF, and A as its chief executive from November 2014, did not disclose promptly the management's decision to continue the project under full consolidation in the group accounts and with major financial restructuring measures.

The Commission found the first grievance made out. It held that new conditions imposed by the UK Treasury after the 2013 announcements, including contingent capital of GBP 8 billion and clauses linked to the Flamanville construction, significantly affected the financing structure and doubled the shareholders' exposure, so the statement was false and could set EDF's share price at an artificial level. It treated EDF as knowing what it published in its own name and held B answerable as the executive who reviewed the release, and said no intent was required. It held the second grievance not made out, because the information became inside information on Saturday 19 September 2015 and EDF published it on Monday 21 September.

It fined EDF EUR 5,000,000 and B EUR 50,000, put A out of the case, and ordered publication on the AMF website for five years, non-anonymised except for A. It found that none of the respondents had made a profit or avoided a loss from the breach.

This record does not show whether the decision was appealed.

This library tags the matter as false rumors (the nearest tag for misleading corporate information). 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2020-07-28 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.