AMF France v. A (insider trading, 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 23 October 2008 the Commission des sanctions found that the chairman and majority shareholder of a listed payment-terminal company had bought its shares in January and in February to March 2005 using non-public information about its 2004 results, and fined him EUR 450,000. Gains were put at EUR 165,363.

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

€450k

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 first section of the Commission des sanctions decided this matter on 23 October 2008, after an investigation opened in February 2007 and a notification of grievances sent on 11 January 2008. The respondent is A, chairman and chief executive and holder of 50.23 per cent of company X, a Paris-listed maker of transaction hardware and software for banks and retailers, which had been under an ad hoc mandate until February 2005.

The AMF alleged that A used inside information twice: in January 2005, information about X's 2004 turnover and an estimate of its operating result, and in February and March 2005, information about its 2004 consolidated accounts. Rejected procedural objections are not summarised here.

The Commission found that turnover of EUR 27.3 million, above the forecast range of EUR 26 to 27 million, and a better operating result were precise, non-public before their release on 19 January 2005, and likely to move the price. A had admitted that internal reports were frequent and precise, and bought 4,868 shares between 10 and 17 January 2005 and sold part on 1 February. For the second episode it found that after attending a meeting on 14 February 2005 that examined decisive subsidiary accounts, A bought 6,811 shares for about EUR 82,686 from 15 February to 23 March and began selling from 29 March; the results released on 23 March showed an operating result of EUR 3.1 million, well above the earlier public figure.

It imposed a EUR 450,000 financial penalty on A, citing the gravity of a chief executive using inside information on his own company and undisputed gains of EUR 165,363, and ordered publication.

This record does not show whether the decision was appealed.

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. 2008-10-23 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.