Insider Trading Targeted in Europe, As Ex-Airbus CEO's Case Shows
Historically, insider trading of securities hasn’t been enforced nearly as aggressively in Europe as it is in the U.S. But that is changing, as news that the former chief executive officer of Airbus has been charged today with insider trading in France demonstrates.
Gustav Humbert, 58, was released on about $555,000 bond on preliminary charges of insider trading at EADS, the planemaker’s parent company, by Autorité des Marchés Financiers, a French financial regulator, according to the London Times and Agence France-Presse. He had reportedly been in custody since Monday.
“In total 17 French and German members and former members of EADS and its main subsidiary, Airbus, are suspected of insider trading by the French regulator,” writes AFP.
“Allegedly they exercised options or sold stock in the company in late 2005 and early 2006, before news broke about problems with Airbus’s new A380 superjumbo airliner,” reports Fortune, in an article that was written before news of the charges against Humbert and focuses on insider trading investigations of two other EADS executives.
The magazine describes the case as “the latest reminder that European regulators [are] getting serious about cleaning up their stock markets.”
Under French law, “preliminary charges … mean investigating magistrates have determined there is strong evidence to suggest involvement in a crime,” reports the Associated Press. “The filing gives the judges time to pursue an investigation that can result in a trial or in the charges being dropped.”
