When the shares of a company whose registered office is established in France are admitted to trading on a regulated market of a Member State of the European Union or of another State party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, any person, with the exception of the persons mentioned in 3° of IV of Article L. 233-7, who holds, alone or in concert, by virtue of one or more temporary sales of these shares or any transaction giving him the right or obliging him to resell or return these shares to the seller, a number of shares representing more than two hundredths of the voting rights, informs the company and the Autorité des marchés financiers of the total number of shares it holds temporarily, no later than the date of registration of shareholders in the accounts preceding the General Meeting, set by decree by the Conseil d’Etat, and where the contract organising this transaction remains in force on that date. This declaration must include, in addition to the number of shares acquired under one of the aforementioned transactions, the identity of the transferor, the date and expiry date of the contract relating to the transaction and, if applicable, the voting agreement.
The company shall publish this information in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the General Regulations of the Autorité des marchés financiers.
Failing to inform the company and the Autorité des marchés financiers in accordance with the conditions set out in I, the shares acquired under one of the transactions referred to in I shall be stripped of voting rights for the shareholders’ meeting concerned and for any shareholders’ meeting held until the said shares are resold or returned. Resolutions passed by the shareholders’ meeting in breach of this II may be annulled.
The Commercial Court in whose jurisdiction the company has its registered office may, after hearing the Public Prosecutor, at the request of the company’s representative, a shareholder or the Autorité des marchés financiers, order the total or partial suspension, for a period not exceeding five years, of the voting rights of any shareholder who has failed to provide the information provided for in I.
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