Two traders convicted in Paris over $23m insider coup

A Paris court convicted two men of insider trading in a secret network that made $23 million on a tip from a former Societe Generale SA banker about a confidential multibillion-dollar acquisition.

Lucien Selce and Alexis Kuperfis were given jail terms of 3 years and 1 year respectively and combined fines of €43 million ($50.3 million). Paris judge Gérald Bégranger issued an arrest warrant against the Geneva-based traders, who were absent when he read out the court’s ruling. An ex-wealth manager who placed the suspicious trades on behalf of Kuperfis was also sentenced for his role.

Selce, 63, and Kuperfis, 45, made illegal gains from a confidential tip about Air Liquide SA’s plans to take over U.S. chemical producer Airgas Inc., the court ruled. The information was allegedly shared with the duo by the former banker and via an intermediary in late 2015 using burner phones that the police managed to wiretap by tracing the suspects’ movements.

Ahead of the Airgas trial, the former SocGen banker and the intermediary pleaded guilty, as did two other traders. Between them, the four traders prosecuted over Airgas transactions made about $23 million. Selce allegedly earned $13.2 million from his trades, and Kuperfis $4.6 million

Monday’s sentencing marks the first major insider-trading convictions in France in years. It forms part of a joint effort with US and UK authorities to prosecute members of an international network that they’d been chasing for the better part of two decades. In the US, a onetime Merrill Lynch banker was indicted in November for insider trading and is considered a fugitive.

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