In Ubisoft news that isn't about their ongoing fight to not be taken over by Vivendi, five executives of the company have been accused of using their insider knowledge to profit on the stock market. Of couse, the accused executives deny all these claims and some are even seeking damages against the people accusing them.
The accusing party are the stock market regulator for France - Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) - and have accused the CEO of Ubisoft Montreal Yannis Mallat and four other Ubisoft executives of selling up stock in the weeks before October 15th 2013. This was just before the publisher announced delays for two of their then-upcoming games - Watch Dogs and The Crew. After the announcement Ubisoft's stock dropped by 25%.
The AMF have seen this and theorised that the executives sold up their stocks before the delay announcements were made, because they knew about them and wanted to get the money before their stocks were suddenly worth an awful lot less. Insider trading laws in France prohibit this by the way, so it's a serious accusation to make.
On Ubisoft's side, Mallat has told Canadian newspaper La Presse that he had no such insider knowledge to have acted upon. Ubisoft as a whole have answered with a statement that they're well aware of the accusations and the individuals involved "vigorously dispute their implication in this matter and the AMF’s interpretation of the facts"; and the CEO and co-founder of Ubisoft Yves Guillemot, says the accused "have his full support and trust".
In the statement the publisher said, "Ubisoft itself has not been charged by the AMF. Moreover, three of the Canadian team members implicated in the AMF’s action today filed a motion with the Superior Court of Québec demanding that the procedure be declared invalid and seeking damages against AMF France and AMF Québec."
Proceedings will continue through this month at the Commission des Sanctions in Paris.
