The French Ordonnance of December 3, 2015 amended the French Code Monétaire et Financier under certain rules and penalties for disclosure to the French Financial Authority (AMF) and the French issuers by shareholders of their shareholdings. Thus, Article L. 233-7 of the Commercial Code, which obliges shareholders to declare any crossing of legal thresholds, expanded to any natural or legal person acting alone or in concert who comes to own, "directly or indirectly" these thresholds. Beyond expanding the entities concerned, the order is particularly interested in defining sanctions for failure by providing certain rules and financial penalties of up to € 100 million or representing 5% of annual revenues. This obligation aims at a better market information about key shareholders and their identification by the companies. The lack of notification in due time is also still punished by a privation of voting rights which is a serious risk for responsible investors managing money on behalf of their clients. Therefore, it is essential for any investor to put in place a rigorous system of monitoring the legal and statutory threshold crossings. This can indeed be tricky because of the special problems for the French market: short deadlines, stricter thresholds defined in the articles of association, double voting rights ... In this context, Proxinvest has supported many shareholders for fifteen years by providing daily files helping them report their threshold crossings (for any information related to this service, please contact Charles Pinel at 01.45.51.50.43 or via our contact form)
