AMF France v. X (insider trading controls, 2008)

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.

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On 7 February 2008 the Commission des sanctions rejected the insider-dealing allegations against a hedge fund, its manager and its parent bank over fund purchases of a listed property company's shares in August 2003, but fined the bank EUR 300,000 for conflict-of-interest and watch-list monitoring failures.

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

€300k

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 sitting in plenary decided this matter on 7 February 2008, after an investigation opened in January 2004 and notifications of grievances sent in November and December 2006. The respondents were a Jersey hedge fund (Y''), its manager B, the parent bank X and X's secretary general A.

The AMF alleged that Y'' bought about 36 per cent of the market in a listed property company's shares in August 2003 while holding inside information that the bank and another shareholder were about to sell their stake, that the bank passed the information on, and that the bank and its secretary general failed in conflict-of-interest, information-barrier and watch-list controls.

The Commission rejected the insider-dealing allegations against the fund, B and the bank. It said the indicators put forward (size and timing of purchases, the fund's links with the bank) did not show that only inside information could explain the buying, and that B gave a plausible account of an event-driven strategy. It did find that the bank had breached rules on conflicts of interest and on monitoring securities on its watch list, having no control over the fund's purchases, and rejected the allegation that its compliance officer lacked resources. It cleared the secretary general.

It imposed a EUR 300,000 financial penalty on X and cleared A, B and the fund.

This record does not show that any insider dealing was found; the penalty is for compliance failings only. Identities of the bank are not published.

This library tags the matter as insider trading (alleged conduct; the insider-dealing charges were rejected). 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. 2008-02-07 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.