Interesting addition with the aid of Mystic Wanderer. Lets hope they lock him up.
Quote:Soros Is Found Guilty in France On Charges of Insider TradingNew York Times:
'After a 14-year investigation, a French court today convicted the American financier George Soros of
insider trading and fined him 2.2 million euros ($2.3 million), the amount prosecutors said he had profited
from the trading. Mr. Soros, who was not present in the courtroom, called the verdict unfounded and said
he would appeal.
Mr. Soros, chairman and president of Soros Fund Management, is one of the world's richest fund managers,
and probably its most famous. He is best known for making huge and very successful speculative bets in
currency markets, and for his extensive philanthropy, most notably in countries of Eastern Europe.
Prosecutors accused Mr. Soros of buying stakes in four formerly state-owned companies in France, including
one of the country's leading banks, Société Générale, for his Quantum Endowment Fund in 1988 based on
confidential information. The stakes were worth a total of about $50 million at the time.
Two other defendants in the case -- Jean-Charles Naouri, 53, a former senior official in the French finance
ministry, and Samir Traboulsi, 64, a French citizen of Lebanese origin -- were acquitted.
At a hearing a month ago, prosecutors recommended fines for all three men, and suggested the $2.3 million
figure for Mr. Soros as a minimum penalty.
Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Mr. Soros, said by phone from New York that Mr. Soros ''is sort of taking it in.''
''It is a shock,'' he said.
The case drew extensive attention in the French news media, in part because of Mr. Soros's image as the epitome
of the freewheeling financier, but also because it illustrated some of the anomalies of financial oversight in France.
The roots of the case date back to 1987, when the center-right government of the time privatized Société Générale,
a major French banking company. When the Socialist Party retook power in an election the next year, the new
overnment sought to regain control of the bank.
Seeing an opportunity to profit while helping their political allies, a group of investors connected with the French
financier Georges Pébereau devised a plan to acquire control of Société Générale, sending its share price soaring.
According to testimony in the trial, an associate of Mr. Pébereau told Mr. Soros by telephone about the planned bid,
hoping to enlist his support. He declined to take part.
Mr. Soros's lawyers argued that what Mr. Soros was told was not specific enough or confidential enough to justify a
charge of insider trading. Further, they argued, before 1990 the French law against insider trading applied only to
employees trading in their own company's shares.
''At no point was I in possession of inside information regarding Société Générale,'' said Mr. Soros, who was in
New York today, in a statement. He called the charges against him ''without merit'' and said he would appeal the
verdict ''to the highest level necessary.''
His lawyers said the case could be appealed in France and to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
The extraordinary length of the case would seem to offer strong grounds: European courts have overturned rulings
on that basis in cases that lasted just five years. Prosecutors said the case lasted so long in part because it took
years to get some needed documents from other countries, notably Switzerland.
Mr. Soros's lawyer, Bernard du Granrut, told reporters today that ''an entire range of quite particular issues that we
raised were not even considered by the court.''
Mr. Soros had never before been convicted of financial misdeeds. In 1979, he signed a consent decree with the
Securities and Exchange Commission in a civil proceeding relating to his trading in the stock of an American
computer manufacturer that was about to issue fresh shares.
Commission officials contended that Mr. Soros had sold shares to push down the price of the new shares.
Mr. Soros acknowledged no wrongdoing, but agreed not to engage in similar practices in the future.
Unlike American law, French law does not provide for civil enforcement actions in insider trading cases;
they may be pursued here only as criminal matters.
In an appearance before the court in November, Mr. Soros said, ''I have been in business all my life, and I think
I know what is insider trading, and what it isn't.''
The unsuccessful bid for Société Générale by Mr. Pébereau, whose brother Michel Pébereau is chairman of BNP
Paribas, formed part of a larger political intrigue involving François Mitterrand, who sought after winning re-election
as president in 1988 to bring several large French companies under the sway of investors supporting his Socialist
Party.
An early investigation into the events by the French stock market oversight agency, the Commission des Opérations
de Bourse, made little mention of Mr. Soros. Not until after 1992 did prosecutors question him about his role in the affair.
None of the central participants in Mr. Pébereau's plan to take over Société Générale, including the former chairman
of the L'Oreal cosmetics group, François Dalle, and the French founder of the Perrier water group, Gustave Leven,
were brought to trial....'
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