Insider trading fine for ex-Soc Gen boss
FORMER Societe Generale investment bank head Jean-Pierre Mustier has been fined €100,000 (£81,950) by France’s AMF financial regulator over insider trading as the financial crisis began.
Former SocGen non-executive director Robert Day has been cleared as part of the same investigation, the AMF said yesterday.
The watchdog said that Mustier had access to inside information on potential subprime mortgage-related losses at the bank when he sold 6,000 SocGen shares in late 2007, though it said the shares were a tiny part of the whole portfolio he offloaded.
It said he used his banking knowledge, particularly of collateralised debt, to see the shares at a profit.
The AMF added that by the time Robert Day sold 1.4m SocGen shares on his own account between mid-December 2007 and January 2008, he was not trading on inside information.
Jean Veil, lawyer for Mr Mustier said the former executive, who resigned from the bank in August 2009 when the AMF investigation began, would appeal against the decision.
Mustier has always maintained his own innocence, saying he sold the shares on the basis of publicly available information.
In a separate statement, the AMF said its sanctions committee had cleared rival bank Natixis in a probe over alleged misrepresentation of financial losses in 2008.
Last Friday, the trial of former Societe Generale trader Jerome Kerviel ended, with his defence team calling for him to be acquitted of charges of breach of trust and forgery relating to a €4.9bn trading loss in 2008 that almost brought SocGen to its knees. He is pleading guilty to a third charge of computer abuse.
The public prosecutor is calling for a five-year prison sentence for all the charges. He may also face a €375,000 fine, depending on the verdict – due on 5 October.