Traders Convicted in Paris Over $23 Million Insider Scheme

(Bloomberg) — Two Geneva-based traders were handed jail terms for their role in a secret network that made about $23 million on an insider tip from a former Societe Generale SA banker about a confidential multibillion-dollar merger.

Lucien Selce and Alexis Kuperfis were sentenced to three years and one year respectively and fined €30 million ($35.1 million) and €13 million. Paris judge Gérald Bégranger issued an arrest warrant against the pair, who were absent when he read out the judgment.

Selce, 63, and Kuperfis, 45, cashed in on the 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.

The recordings show the group “operated like regular criminals” in a scheme that had the “flavor” of a conspiracy, said Bégranger. “These individuals had taken precautions to avoid being overheard—albeit in vain.”

Monday’s sentencing marks the first major insider-trading convictions in France for 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.

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, though the court focused in its ruling on a slightly smaller sum, and Kuperfis $4.6 million.

Loïc Henriot, an attorney for Kuperfis, declined to comment on the ruling, while a lawyer for Selce didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

France’s stock market regulator, which initiated the Airgas investigation praised the convictions, through a lawyer. “It is an exemplary decision for a case of unprecedented scale,” said Renaud Thominette after the ruling was read out.

‘Absolute Rubbish’

What set the Airgas case apart are the recorded calls. Selce, who featured on many of them, was asked to explain himself during February hearings. Wearing a suit and a tie with gray hair neatly trimmed on the sides and brushed back, he tried to dismiss their overall significance in his testimony.

But the mood changed when the Paris judge decided to play out the wiretaps in court halfway through the February hearings. As his recorded voice first rang out, Selce fixed his gaze on the ground for several minutes.

Still, the financier said he didn’t consider the unlikely intermediary – a paintball entrepreneur he’d befriended in the late 1990s – had any insider information when he mentioned on a call a possible Airgas deal. “I was listening but not taking him very seriously,” Selce claimed. The intermediary initially gave him a code that Selce described as “grotesque” and failed to decipher. “I’m thinking to myself, here we go again – he’s talking absolute rubbish,” he said.

Selce told the judges that he’d first heard stirrings of the Airgas acquisition through a colleague in Geneva, who had spotted “technical signals” surrounding the stock. That, he claimed, is what eventually led him to take a position with an exposure of $30 million on Airgas which was “not extravagant at all.” He knew he could lose a few million dollars on Airgas, “but that happened to me often,” he told the court, asserting he’d once lost $35 million in a single trade.

Before becoming a solo trader in Geneva, Selce began his career in finance in Paris and then worked successively for Cargill, Barclays and Daiwa during a spell in the City of London. He has remained active on the markets in recent years.

‘The Cowboy’

Sporting the same quarter-zip blue jumper and chinos throughout February trial hearings, Kuperfis told Paris judges that he was still pursuing a master’s degree in Paris when he started his first business venture arranging leveraged-buyouts for small non-listed companies. After a few deals and still only in his mid-twenties, Kuperfis had enough cash to start requiring the services of a wealth manager – the one who placed the Airgas trades on his behalf. It’s around that time, in 2005, that Kuperfis says he first met Selce, whose Geneva offices were a few hundred meters away from where the wealth manager worked.

In court testimony, Kuperfis spent time disassociating himself from Selce. He denied being “the cowboy” that Selce referred to in one wiretapped call. (Unlike the others, Kuperfis wasn’t caught on tape.) “I’m not close to him,” he said of Selce. “There’s no partnership.”

During part of the investigation the pair weren’t allowed to enter in contact with one another to prevent any collusion. When that restriction was lifted, Kuperfis said he asked Selce why he’d said “bullsh*t” about him being the cowboy. He claims Selce replied that he was advised to do so by his lawyers.

Kuperfis still resides in Switzerland and manages his own fortune. He told the court that he still makes more than €1 million annually. He is said to be a foodie and ready to pay big bucks to bring in top chefs to his home. He turns 46 on Tuesday.

‘Annoying’ Friday

The court was most lenient with Thierry Braha, who had been a wealth manager for Kuperfis when the Airgas trades took place. Just like Selce and Kuperfis, he was absent on Monday. He was sentenced to less than a year in jail — meaning he is unlikely to serve time under French law — and a €150,000 fine for aiding and abetting.

In February court hearings, Braha relived the day he placed the Airgas trades on behalf of Kuperfis more than a decade ago. Before the market opened that November Friday, he said he noticed that there had been an uptick in Airgas trading volume the previous day, which chimed with a rumor that the firm was a target. That, he claims, convinced him to stake about $10 million of his client’s money, not any non-public information.

But he found out later that day that the bank handling the trades failed to fully execute his order. “It was annoying, it was a Friday evening,” he said in court. Braha rang the bank to get it finalized during the US trading window in a call that was recorded: “You have to sort your sh*t out.” Four days later, Braha reaped a profit of about $4.6 million for Kuperfis.

Braha said that media reports surrounding his involvement in the Airgas investigation effectively shut him out of several banking establishments he worked with. He lost several clients, including Kuperfis, eventually quit wealth management altogether and moved to Dubai to work in real estate.

(Updates with details of traders starting in ninth paragraph)

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