PARIS (Reuters) - Societe Generale (PA:SOGN) has agreed to pay a 450,000 euros (348,162 pounds) fine in an agreement with the French markets regulator AMF for breaching compliance rules in analyst notes produced by its Global Research and Strategy department.
"The due diligence revealed, on the one hand, breaches in the production of analyst notes, and on the other hand, failures concerning the management of privileged information," AMF said in a statement.
In an investigation that started in 2015, AMF said it found out that in some equity research notes, SocGen failed to disclose the main assumptions it used to set the price target, or to mention that the bank had previously acted as a bookrunner, (fundraiser) for the company covered by the note.
"Societe Generale has reinforced its compliance system for the production of research notes since 2016," SocGen said in an emailed statement.
It also said that "no investor has suffered any prejudice as a result" of the compliance breaches, pointed out by the French regulator.
"AMF's findings... do not call into question the quality of the research produced by Societe Generale," the bank said.
