Insider Trading Accusations Lead to Huge Fines for Ubisoft Executives
Last month, five Ubisoft executives were accused of insider trading. Now, fines have been handed down, totalling over 1.2 million dollars! Although Ubisoft asserts that the employees “acted in good faith” and “did not intentionally commit any acts contrary to market regulations,” the fines aren’t good news for the company image.
It was announced today that the AMF Sanctions Committee in France have decided to hand down a total of $1.2 million in fines to the five employees named in the scandal last month. The employees, who live across Canada and France, are said to have sold Ubisoft stock back in 2013 before it was revealed that The Crew and Watch Dogs releases would be delayed. Following this news, Ubisoft’s stock experienced a dramatic drop.
It should be noted that Ubisoft itself has not been implicated, and insists the employees did not commit any wrongdoing. “Regrettably, the AMF’s decision represents a serious misunderstanding of the game development and production process at our company and common to our industry. Each major game requires the involvement of multiple teams across the company, but ultimately only the company’s CEO can make an exceptional decision such as changing a game’s release date.”
Four of the five employees (Christine Burgess, Yannis Mallat, Olivier Paris, and Francis Baillet)Â have announced that they will appeal this decision, while one, (Damien Moret) has not yet announced that he will be appealing the decision. There is no information on the timeframe of their appeal at this time.
The full list of penalties follows below. You can read the AMF’s full decision here. It’s currently only available in French.
- Christine Burgess — 200,000 EUR ($211,000 USD)
- Yannis Mallat — 700,000 EUR ($737,000 USD)
- Olivier Paris — 100,000 EUR ($105,000 USD)
- Francis Baillet — 200,000 EUR ($211,000 USD)
- Damien Moret — 15,000 EUR ($15,800 USD)
It’s not all bad news for Ubisoft though as they celebrate their 30th anniversary with a 30 day giveaway, and celebrate the success of their newest titles, including Watch Dogs 2!