AMF France v. Mecelec Composites and A (false or misleading information, 2018)
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.
On 18 July 2018 the Commission des sanctions found that Mecelec Composites and its chairman and chief executive published inaccurate information in 2014 by omitting key terms of an April 2014 agreement from a press release and by presenting a property transaction as an asset sale with a EUR 3.8 million gain. It fined the company EUR 60,000 and the executive EUR 80,000.
The record
| Agency | AMF (France) |
|---|---|
| Release number | SAN-2018-10 |
| Date filed | 2018-07-18 |
| Date resolved | 2018-07-18 |
| Court | Commission des sanctions (AMF, France) |
| Status | judgment |
| Asset class | equities |
| Instruments | Mecelec Composites shares |
| Venue | Euronext Paris |
| Criminal parallel | No |
| Defendants | Mecelec Composites ; A |
| Techniques | Misleading issuer disclosure |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- —
- Disgorgement
- —
- Prejudgment interest
- —
- Total relief
- —
- Alleged gain
- —
- Penalty as published
- €140k
What is alleged to have happened
The Commission des sanctions of the Autorité des marchés financiers (second section) decided the case on 18 July 2018, after a hearing on 27 June. The AMF had opened its inquiry into Mecelec's financial information in May 2015, and notifications of grievances went to the company and to A, its chairman and chief executive, in April 2017.
The notifications alleged two failings: omitting several essential terms of an agreement of 8 April 2014 from the press release of 22 April 2014, and describing a property transaction of 30 December 2013 as an asset sale that produced a EUR 3.8 million gain in the 2013 consolidated accounts, which overstated consolidated net profit by that amount, a 295 per cent increase.
The Commission found both made out. It held that the April 2014 agreement was binding and not too uncertain to disclose, so the press release's omissions made it inaccurate. On the accounts, it noted the company's auditors had approved the sale treatment without knowing of the agreement and, once told, treated the deal as a financing operation and asked for corrections. It held the information published in the press releases, the 2013 annual financial report and the 2013 reference document was misleading, and imputed it to A as chief executive.
It fined Mecelec Composites EUR 60,000 and A EUR 80,000, and ordered publication on the AMF website for five years, non-anonymised.
This record does not show any price effect of the statements, and it does not show whether the decision was appealed.
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
- 2018-07-18 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.
Related actions
Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.