Case
Allegations of Insider Trading Against Major Shareholder of French Biotech Corporation
An Analysis Group team, led by Managing Principal Marc Van Audenrode, was retained by lawyers from Linklaters LLP to help their client - the major shareholder of a listed French biotech corporation - fight allegations of insider trading brought by the French financial markets regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).
The AMF claimed that the major shareholder's sale of a large block of shares a few minutes before the biotech corporation's release of allegedly disappointing half-year earnings constituted insider trading. Analysis Group prepared a report for the defendant, noting that academic literature agrees that what would be considered "disappointing" earnings in a regular industry is not relevant for biotech startups. The Analysis Group team's report demonstrated that historical earnings announcements by the biotech corporation had no material impact on its stock price, and that the negative stock returns observed subsequent to the announcement by the biotech corporation were unrelated to this announcement.
The AMF Rapporteur, designated amongst the AMF Enforcement Committee members to investigate the matter, agreed with Analysis Group's conclusion and recommended that the major shareholder should be cleared of any wrongdoing. The AMF Enforcement Committee followed the AMF Rapporteur's recommendation.
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Marc Van Audenrode*
Managing Principal*Dr. Van Audenrode is an expert in data analysis and econometrics, labor economics, antitrust and competition policy, and public economics. He has consulted to clients - including law firms and government agencies - in Canada, the US, and Europe. Dr. Van Audenrode’s work includes developing a methodology to value desktop software; he also developed expertise valuing goods as varied as restaurant franchises, executive stock options, or smartphone features. His recent work in public economics includes evaluating the economic rent from hydroelectricity to the Canadian economy and the value of logging rights on the ancestral territory of a Canadian First Nation. In the area of labor economics, his work has included filing an expert report assessing fair compensation for Quebec provincial judges and Quebec prosecutors and advising Quebec’s commission on pay equity. Dr. Van Audenrode has filed expert reports in courts in the US, Canada, Belgium, Germany, France, and the Netherlands, and has testified in Canada and the US. He recently filed a report with the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in support of the settlement reached between Ageas and claimant organizations in the Fortis case, the largest settlement ever reached through the Dutch Collective Settlement Act (WCAM). Dr. Van Audenrode’s scientific research and articles have been published in numerous peer-reviewed academic journals and trade journals. He is a coauthor of the book The Mutual Fund Industry: Competition and Investor Welfare, and is a frequent presenter at industry and academic conferences.
*Marc Van Audenrode srl