France's Financial Markets Authority announced that the Paris Criminal Court has convicted five individuals and five legal entities for private corruption, organised market manipulation and insider dealing linked to trading in Casino and Rallye securities, bringing to a close a market abuse file initiated from AMF referrals to the National Financial Prosecutor's Office. The AMF said its October 2018 investigation identified an alleged manipulative scheme involving Casino and Nicolas Miguet, structured as a paid business relationship concealed through a consulting agreement and subscriptions to the Hebdo BoursePlus publication, and suspected insider dealing involving the transfer of inside information on the acceleration and outperformance of Casino’s asset disposal targets used for deleveraging. Following the AMF–PNF case allocation procedure for market abuse, the PNF pursued criminal proceedings, with the AMF assisting investigative steps and joining the case as a civil party. The court imposed prison sentences of up to four years including custodial terms, fines of up to EUR 40 million and professional bans against Casino and former senior executives Jean-Charles Naouri, Franck-Philippe Georgin, Nicolas Boudot and Jacques Dumas, as well as against Nicolas Miguet and three related companies; some shareholder civil parties also obtained compensation, and the court recognised the AMF’s moral harm. The decision is subject to appeal.

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