AMF France v. Syquant Capital (layering, 2017)

Settled

✓ 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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In December 2017 the AMF agreed a settlement with Syquant Capital over 233 sequences in which it allegedly entered many buy orders for ex-dividend new shares and cut them within seconds of the fixing to improve its arbitrage margin; it agreed to pay EUR 350,000.

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

€350k

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 AMF published an administrative settlement (accord de composition administrative) with Syquant Capital, dated 1 December 2017. This is not a contested sanctions hearing. The agreement took effect only once the AMF Collège validated it and the Commission des sanctions homologated it; the document gives the signing date but not the homologation date, so the signing date is used here.

The AMF opened an investigation in February 2016 into Syquant Capital’s trading from March 2013 in the new shares (not yet entitled to the dividend) linked to twelve large French listed companies.

The agreement describes 233 sequences between March 2013 and March 2016 in which Syquant entered many buy orders at prices likely to deter other arbitrageurs, then cancelled part of them less than thirty seconds before the fixing (163 sequences kept the position until the last ten seconds). The cut lowered the indicative price and, so the AMF said, improved the firm’s arbitrage margin against the ordinary share price less the dividend. The AMF considered that the fragmented, optimistic bids could mislead investors about demand.

Syquant agreed to pay EUR 350,000 to the Treasury within fifteen days of homologation. The agreement records that the Parquet national financier told the AMF on 25 July 2017 that it did not wish to bring a prosecution against Syquant Capital for these facts, so no criminal case is stated.

What the record does not show: the agreement describes conduct that the person "could" or "would" have committed, so it records allegations and undertakings, not a finding of breach, and it is not styled as a fine. It does not show whether any later challenge occurred.

This library tags the matter as layering, 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 2 techniques 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2017-12-01 Settlement agreed (homologated by the Commission des sanctions)

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 settlement page
• Settlement (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.