The number of disputes related to the stock market activities of individuals increased markedly in 2021, according to the AMF mediator. Consequence of the influx of new investors following the Covid crisis.
It is the ransom of success. In 2020, the outbreak of the Covid crisis, and the stock market shock that followed, gave rise to many vocations of stockbrokers, particularly among those under 35, determined to take advantage of the rebound which did not fail to arrive a few weeks later. In total, nearly a million new French people, since 2019, have taken up the game of buying and selling securities.
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Two years later, the mediator of the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), Marielle Cohen-Branche, noted a marked increase in disputes. Those linked to the execution of stock market orders, in particular, exploded: they doubled between 2020 and 2021. And she does not hesitate to make the link with this influx. (…) It is clear that the mastery of these financial instruments by new investors on the stock market has not always been there, explained Marielle Cohen-Branche, quoted by The echoes, on the occasion of the presentation of its annual report. Newbies are not always aware of the risks specific to the deferred settlement service (SRD), which allows leverage of up to five times the amount of the account’s cash balance, but multiplies the risk of loss.
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Another source of disputes on the rise: those related to transfers of equity savings plans (PEA), which represented 329 requests from individuals (out of a total of 2000), compared to 154 in 2020. A good part of them , however, resulted in a single mass litigation, in the context of the takeover of one banking establishment by another.