BNP Paribas: the insider trading investigation no further action – The Tribune.fr

“In the absence of any offense, the national financial prosecutor (PNF) has filed away this procedure” , said the national financial prosecutor Eliane Crook in a statement Wednesday 8 April.

So the investigation into possible insider trading committed by leaders of BNP Paribas ends. Opened in October 2014, she was on operations on the basis of the company in 2013, while a cumbersome threats to the bank was underway in the United States on the violation of the embargo on financial transactions Cuba, Sudan and Iran.

Baudoin Prot and Pébereau were implicated

Canard chained , which revealed the affair, affirmed that the Executive Officers were former bank president Baudouin Prot, his predecessor Pébereau and Deputy CEO Philippe Bordenave. Involved, according to the weekly, selling nearly 300,000 shares at an average price between 44 and 49 euros.

But “all the evidence gathered deny any possibility of offenses of ‘initiated by the leaders of BNP Paribas in their operations on the title of the company, both in 2013 until the announcement of the punishment for summer 2014 “, said in a statement the prosecutor National Financial.

The investigation was entrusted to the Financial Guard and the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) was also sought.

At the time, the PNF had received “anonymous letter” alleging insider trading “attributed to several executives of BNP Paribas, committed in 2013,” said national financial prosecutor. “This denunciation was accompanied by internal documents to the group” , said Eliane Crook.

BNP Paribas agreed to pay a fine of $ 8.9 billion

At the announcement of the investigation, in mid-November, a source close to the bank explained that the sale of shares were part “as part of a stock option plan maturing in 2013 “ and ” concerned leaders (had) expected that the US investigation is announced to the market (in February 2013, ed) to sell their shares, as they do every years. “

As part of the US proceedings, BNP Paribas had been traded in 2014 and agreed to pay a fine of $ 8.9 billion (8 2 billion), a record for a foreign bank.

In addition to the fine, the French bank was also banned from dollar payments for a year, from January 2015 to December 2015, and temporary restrictions were imposed on its business in the United States.

This issue, however, was greeted with relief by the markets on which feared a much higher fine. The share price had not fallen.