On 3 August 2013, Jean-Pierre Chevallier, former university professor in financial analysis, posted on its blog an article written in French in which he stated that “the amount of equity components published by the [Societe Generale’s agents] do not reflect reality”. On 14 August 2013, he posted an article written in English in which he pointed out that the Societe Generale’s equity item entitled “equity instruments and associated reserves” was only “constituted by liabilities and not by equity components”, assessment on the basis of which he pretended that the Tier one ratio (equity components / liabilities) of the Societe Generale was not 9.3% but 2% on 30 June 2011.

The Enforcement Committee applied article 632-1 of the AMF’s general regulation providing that “all persons must refrain from disclosing or knowingly disseminating information, regardless of the medium used, that gives or may give false, imprecise or misleading signals as to financial instruments. This includes the spreading of rumours or false or misleading information, where the person making the dissemination knew or ought to have known that the information was false or misleading”.

In this case, the Enforcement Committee noted that it “could not be missed” by Jean-Pierre Chevallier, because of its qualifications and the careful reading of the Societe Generale’s documentation he proceeded to, that the information he had spread was inaccurate. The Enforcement Committee therefore ordered him to pay €10000 euros.

In addition, the Enforcement Committee condemned Mike Sheldock, investment advisor, with a €8000 euros fine for having reported Jean-Pierre Chevallier’s data on its blog without having done “the elementary checks that would have allowed him to notice that the information given on the content of the [Societe Generale’s] equity item entitled “equity instruments and associated reserves”and on its Tier one on 30 June 2011 was inaccurate”.  

The Enforcement Committee’s decision dated 7 November 2013 sanctioned for the first time in France the spreading of inaccurate information on financial blogs. The breaching of the ban resulting from article 632-1 of AMF’s general regulation was already punished in cases involving other types of media (press release, information notice, board presentation, letter to shareholders, communication on the company’s website, etc.)

The Enforcement Committee’s decision is available here.