According to Agence France-Presse, published on October 24, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the stock market regulators in France, fined a Lebanese trader 14 million euros for insider trading. The AMF states that in 2008 the trader Joseph Raad used insider trading surrounding buying the shares of logistics company Geodis. Raad bought 107,787 shares, more than eight million euros of Geodis shares and related financial products between March 20 and April 4. On April 6, 2008, SNCF made an offer for the entire capital of its transport and logistics subsidiary Geodis for 1.1 billion euros. Consequently, the trader who had not been interested in transport sector before, earned 6.25 million euro, France 24 says.
It is said that Raad was passed the insider information by his cousin Charles Rosier, a UBS banker at the time close to the deal. Rosier was fined 400,000 euros for passing information.
The previous record fine was 8 million euros; luxury goods group LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton), producer of goods under the trademarks Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and Hennessy, was fined this sum for failing to properly disclose its stakebuilding in rival luxury goods group Hermès, Agence France-Presse says.
