AMF France v. X (price manipulation, 2021)

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 26 February 2021 the Commission des sanctions dismissed price-manipulation charges against a Luxembourg-based majority shareholder (X) over aggressive buying of the shares of listed company Y on three days in December 2015 and January 2016, finding that the purchases reflected a genuine buying interest. 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

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Alleged gain

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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 26 February 2021, after a hearing on 22 January. The AMF had opened its inquiry into the shares of a company anonymised as Y in May 2016. Notifications of grievances with an offer of an administrative settlement went to Y and to X, which already held about 75.5 per cent of Y. Y reached a settlement with the AMF's secretary general in November 2019, but X did not, so the matter went to the Commission.

The grievance alleged that on 29 and 30 December 2015 and 8 January 2016 X placed extremely aggressive buy orders for Y shares, buying 15,010, 35,000 and 3,000 shares, which was said to be 76 to 93 per cent of the volume traded on those days. The AMF said this lifted the price by 23.31 per cent on the first two days against 1.28 per cent for the CAC 40 index, and by 9.52 per cent on 8 January. It was alleged to give false or misleading signals about demand and to set the price at an artificial level.

The Commission accepted that X was active in the order book but held that the purchases were real: the shares were not resold, X explained that it was reducing cash to cut its Luxembourg wealth-tax base while building its stake, and it bought about EUR 20 million of shares in 14 other companies at the same time. It accepted that the isolated purchases of 8 January came from a wealth manager's misreading of instructions, and that X aimed to tempt minority holders to sell so as to take Y off the market, which later happened. It found neither the false-signal charge nor the artificial-price charge made out.

It put X 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 without effect on the price, and it does not show whether an appeal followed. It does not show the terms of Y's settlement.

This library tags the matter as price manipulation (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.

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

Timeline

1. 2021-02-26 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.