In a ruling handed down today, the Paris Criminal Court convicted Natixis, judging the information contained in its press release of November 25, 2007 to be insufficient, more specifically regarding the risks to which Natixis was exposed at the time due to the subprime crisis.
The Court imposed a sentence of 7.5 million euros. The plaintiffs were awarded total compensation of around 2 million euros.
It is to be reminded that the emergence of the subprime crisis was an unprecedented situation for all banks. Given this context, Natixis still considers that it communicated to the public, with all due sincerity, the information available to the company regarding its exposures, as and when their underlying risks were identified.
In addition, Natixis recalls that the elements of the press release in question, which dates back almost fourteen years, had already been examined by the French financial markets authority (Autorité des marches financiers - AMF), within the framework of its investigation of all of Natixis’ financial communication throughout the subprime crisis. At the end of this investigation, the AMF decided that there was no cause to prosecute Natixis.
Natixis, which considers that it did not commit any offence, has decided to lodge an appeal against this decision as the Paris Criminal Court did not take into account the arguments presented at the hearing.
