AMF France v. Sébastien Loux (insider trading, 2020)

Settled

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In April 2020 the AMF agreed a settlement with Sébastien Loux, deputy managing director of an energy company, over the sale of 5,445 shares on 14 March 2018 minutes before an EBITDA-target announcement; he agreed to pay EUR 30,000.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

€30k

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 Sébastien Loux, dated 9 April 2020. 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.

Mr Loux was deputy managing director of an energy company (anonymised as X) listed on Euronext Paris. The AMF alleged that he tried to sell 8,815 shares and sold 5,445 on 14 March 2018 at an average EUR 36.49, shortly before the company announced, after the close, a 2018 EBITDA target that included a recent acquisition. The AMF said the figures had circulated internally from 25 January 2018 and put his avoided loss at EUR 16,170; the shares fell 8.16% the next day.

He was also within the 30-day closed period before annual results, which the agreement treats as an aggravating factor. The Collège took into account the plausible view that he made a technical error and meant to sell on 15 March.

He agreed to pay EUR 30,000 to the Treasury within fifteen days of homologation.

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 insider trading. 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. 2020-04-09 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.