PARIS — A former co-CEO of Airbus parent company EADS, Noel Forgeard, was hit with preliminary insider trading charges Friday in an extensive probe into stock sales by more than a dozen former and current executives at the European planemaker.
The investigating judges filed the charges overnight and ordered Forgeard freed, who had been in the custody of financial police for two days, pending further investigation, his lawyer Jean-Alain Michel said.
Forgeard is at the center of one of France’s largest alleged insider trading probes, involving one of Europe’s biggest industrial players European Aeronautic Defence &Space NV.
Investigators are looking into the sale of millions of euros worth of EADS shares by top executives and shareholders before a June 2006 announcement of delays for the A380 superjumbo that made EADS shares crash 26 percent in one day.
France has two related probes, one by the Paris prosecutor, the other by the AMF, the Financial Markets Authority. The judges’ probe into alleged insider trading at EADS was opened in late 2006.
The AMF’s investigation focuses on share sales by 17 executives and shareholders DaimlerChrysler AG and Lagardere SCA.
EADS spokesman Pierre ÂBayle declined to comment on the charges against Forgeard and the possible investigation of executives still working for EADS.
EADS CEO Louis Gallois said in a letter to employees last month that his “confidence in EADS managers is total.”
Forgeard’s bail was set at $1.56 million. He was ordered not to speak with the company’s former director of cabinet, according to a judicial source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
Forgeard, who has denied wrongdoing, said during questioning “that he had not committed insider trading” and that to his knowledge neither had any other EADS executives, his lawyer said.
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