Ex-SocGen Banker, Traders Facing Insider Trial Over €18 Million Gains

(Bloomberg) -- An ex-Societe Generale SA banker and a group of traders suspected of making about €18 million ($21.1 million) from an insider tip on a US stock about a decade ago were ordered to face a criminal trial in France, according to people familiar with the matter.

The then SocGen managing director Stéphane Fima and traders Lucien Selce and Alexis Kuperfis are among those to be called to a Paris court, two of the people said who asked not to be named as the decision isn’t public information. The court hearings in the case are tentatively scheduled to start in February but the timeline could slip.

As part of the long-running French case, Fima was accused by authorities of using a burner phone in late 2015 to share a confidential tip with traders via an intermediary about Air Liquide SA’s plans to take over U.S. chemical producer Airgas Inc. Investigators allege Selce made at least €9.9 million from the insider information and Kuperfis about €4.4 million.

The trial will be the first in France as part of an effort alongside enforcers in the US and the UK to clamp down on a loosely connected insiders ring that allegedly operates across several continents. The case is a chance for prosecutors at the Parquet National Financier to make their mark in a country where no major convictions for insider dealing have been recorded in many years.

British prosecutors for their part clinched key convictions in 2019 against other members of this alleged ring — a trader and a former UBS Group AG compliance officer. American authorities also secured guilty pleas from a trader who says he made about $70 million from insider tips and one of his sources, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker.

Lawyers for Selce, Kuperfis and Fima declined to comment as did the Parquet National Financier.

To gather evidence in the Airgas case, investigators conducted surprise inspections at premises throughout the French territory — from upscale ski resorts to well-heeled districts of Paris.

But the most critical piece of evidence for the PNF is a wiretap of Fima’s conversations on his burner phone, details of which were included in an earlier Bloomberg report. Its validity has long been contested by defendants yet, after multiple legal rounds, their privacy arguments were ultimately dismissed.

French investigators from the Autorité des Marchés Financiers painstakingly exploited phone records for the suspects’ official lines to track their movements and uncover their use of secret prepaid mobiles that were regularly discarded to avoid detection.

As part of this case, Seligman is also accused of further spilling the Airgas secret by phone and sharing the inside information with at least two others. Vania Mareuse and Bertrand Van Houtte de la Chaise were alleged to have illegally made respectively €3.3 million and about €225,000 from the Airgas tip. They have also been ordered to face trial as well as Thierry Braha, Kuperfis’ wealth manager, the people said.

Lawyers for Seligman, Mareuse, Van Houtte and Braha declined to comment.

The Airgas trial may set the tone for further French enforcement against insider trading, most often pursued as a civil offense by the AMF.

Fima, Selce and Seligman are also embroiled in a parallel criminal case focusing on suspicious transactions into French oil-services firm CGG SA amid a takeover approach by Technip SA more than a decade ago. A former Merrill Lynch banker and an ex-Brunswick consultant have also been charged as part of that case but no decision has been made about any trial.

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