AMF France v. X, Y, Z, A, B, C and D (misleading information, 2007)

Judgment entered

✓ 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.

Report an error in this record (amf-fr-san-2007-20-market-abuse-2007) by email

On 5 July 2007 the AMF Commission des sanctions found that company X had given the public false and misleading information through accounts that needed more than EUR 82 million of restatements, centred on supplier-income entries it had pushed up, and that its chairman A, finance director B, and one co-auditor firm and its partner were responsible. It fined A EUR 1 million, B and X EUR 500,000 each, auditor Y EUR 100,000 and C EUR 40,000, and cleared Z and D.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

—

Penalty as published

€2.1m

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 AMF decided the matter on 5 July 2007 after a hearing that day. Grievances had been notified on 28 September 2005 to company X and its chairman A and finance director B, and to its two auditing firms (Y and Z) and their partners C and D. X had postponed publication of its first-half 2004 results three times from October 2004 and then disclosed accounting adjustments.

The notices alleged that X and its officers gave the public inaccurate information in the accounts for 2002 and 2003, and that the auditors certified them without reservation.

The Commission found that irregularities concerning supplier rebates and related income were reflected in accounts and had to be restated by over EUR 82 million, that the market's knowledge of the company's real accounting position was thereby distorted, and that the postponement of results on discovery of these irregularities had a direct effect on the share price. It held X, A and B responsible, noting that A, the founder, personally drove the inflated supplier figures and that B was inert in preventing and detecting them; and it held auditor Y and its partner C, who handled these lines, responsible as well.

It cleared Z and D, who certified the consolidated accounts but were not in charge of the audit of the disputed items and had no means to detect the irregularities in a cross-review. It imposed EUR 1,000,000 on A, EUR 500,000 each on B and X (the latter reduced because new owners and managers had changed practices), EUR 100,000 on Y and EUR 40,000 on C, and ordered publication.

The record is an accounting and issuer-disclosure case rather than a market-manipulation case. The decision does not say whether it was later reformed or annulled on appeal. The AMF anonymised the respondents.

This library tags the matter as misleading issuer disclosure. 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.

• Misleading issuer disclosure — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2007-07-05 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.