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In a decision handed down on 22 January 2009, the AMF Enforcement Committee fined Vinci €800,000 for having failed to respect the obligation to refrain from trading in its own shares during a buyback programme, when the company was in possession of inside information about its consolidated turnover.
The Enforcement Committee noted that Vinci was aware on 20 January 2005 that consolidated annual turnover for 2004 was higher not only than the company's previous guidance (which stated that sales were "likely to reach €19 billion") but also than analysts' estimates.
This was the first time the Enforcement Committee had been queried directly as to whether knowledge of an issuer's sales constituted information likely to have a material impact on the company's share price. The Committee held that "although turnover is a less relevant indicator than earnings, for example, when making an investment decision, and must be treated with caution, having regard to other metrics and to the particular characteristics of each sector, it is nevertheless a precise and objective piece of information that cannot in principle be dismissed as non-material". Furthermore, "It cannot be maintained that a 'reasonable investor' would be unlikely to take the information concerning 2004 turnover into consideration if he or she were aware of these disclosures".
The Enforcement Committee also held that, in its public disclosures, the issuer itself had made a connection between its turnover and earnings forecast and that the monthly turnover generated in the latter part of the year had been sharply higher in relation both to previous quarters and to earlier published forecasts.
Insofar as knowledge of turnover had all the characteristics of inside information, the issuer should therefore have refrained from acquiring 567,014 shares under a buyback programme, for a total of €61,178,799, before that information had been disclosed to the public.
The Enforcement Committee said that, when assessing the amount of the fine, it had taken note firstly of Vinci's assertion that the reason for the purchase was to offset the equity dilution resulting from the exercise of stock options and subscriptions to the Group savings plan; and secondly of the fact that, since the material events, the issuer has taken measures with regard to permanent insiders to prevent a repeat of such unsatisfactory conduct.
An appeal may be lodged against this decision in accordance with Articles R. 621-44 to R. 621-46 of the Monetary and Financial Code
