A sanction of 150,000 euros was requested on Friday before the sanctions committee of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) against the former manager and founder of Navya, who is accused of not having communicated enough early that the company was not going to achieve its financial goals in 2018.
On December 7, 2018, Navya, a pioneer of autonomous vehicles founded four years earlier by Franck Sapet, published a press release saying that it considers that the announced turnover objective of 30 million euros for 2018 will not be achieved and that it will rather amount to between 17 and 19 million euros.
After this publication, the group, which had entered the Paris Stock Exchange six months earlier, saw its price drop by more than 20% in one day. Franck Sapet leaves management during the month.
The AMF rapporteur believes that the company took far too long to communicate about its financial health and that an email from the financial director at the time made it predictable no later than October 18 that it would be difficult to achieve the announced objectives.
Nothing justifies the seven-week delay, such a delay is particularly shocking, especially since this failure relates to negative information, said the representative of the AMF college.
During this seven-week period, Navya also confirmed her objectives, it is counter-information, she added.
It appears from the investigation carried out by AMF investigators that the success of Navya’s financial objectives was conditional on several uncertain elements, known since September, including the evolution of regulations in the United States, which threatened 2 million euros in turnover, and the completion of a project with Keolis, one of its historic shareholders.
In October, all the points mentioned were on track, defended Franck Sapet, also explaining that his company usually achieved the majority of its turnover in the last quarter.
It was in December, when the supervisory board was held, that it was said that the objective would not be achieved, the company then communicating in the crowd, argued Me Eric Boillot, lawyer for Franck Sapet.
The sanctions commission is due to make its decision in the coming weeks. She will also comment on the second complaint against Franck Sapet for not having declared to the AMF a threshold crossing of less than 5% of ownership of Navya’s capital in April 2022.