It seems as though the recent hostile takeover by the French media giant Vivendi may not be the biggest and only concerns for Ubisoft at the moment. Certain executives over at Ubisoft are also facing another problem: insider trading claims. Just yesterday, Kotaku reported that Autorite des marches financiers (AMC), France’s prime stock market regulatory system, is stating that Ubisoft CEO Yannis Mallat and four other high-level executives sold the company’s stock weeks before the publisher made the official announcement that Watch Dogs 2 and The Crew would be further delayed.
As the site so blatantly makes clear, Ubisoft’s stock value dropped a significant amount (as much as 32 percent) not long after this the delay announced. The regulators made the claim that the five executives sold the company stock in the weeks just before October 15 (those delay announcements were made to the public). The 32% stock value decrease was the highest drop since the company made it’s debut on the Paris stock exchange back in 1996.
The AMF alleges that Mallat and other Ubisoft executives knew about the delay when selling their stock, violating French laws of insider trading
reported Kotaku.
For his personal matter, Mallat mentioned to La Presse, as has been translated by Kotaku, that he didn’t have any prior insider knowledge. In a recent statement to Kotaku, a representative from Ubisoft stated that the company is fully aware of the lawsuit being filed against it by the AMF concerning the five employees.
Those individuals vigorously dispute their implication in this matter and the AMF’ss interpretation of the facts. Yves Guillemot, cofounder and CEO of Ubisoft, does not question the good faith of the people involved and has reassured them that they have his full support and trust,
the spokesperson said.
The official sanctions board will be continuing the case later this month over in Paris, where Ubisoft is actually based. The game publisher also made note of the fact that it has not itself been charged by the AMF.
