2016 hasn’t exactly been a great year for Ubisoft. As the Assassin’s Creed developer celebrated its 30 years of operation, it continued to fight an ongoing threat of a takeover by Vivendi. And if that isn’t enough, five of its executives have now been collectively fined $1.2 million by French regulators for insider trading – an allegation that Ubisoft vehemently denies.
France’s Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) accused five executives, including Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat, for selling stock in early October 2013, right before announcing that The Crew and Watch Dogs were to be delayed to 2014. Following the announcements, Ubisoft’s stock fell by 25 percent.
Ubisoft slammed AMF’s decision and intends to fight its case. In a statement, the studio said that its executives weren’t aware of the delays at the time of selling stock and acted in good faith. Ubisoft acknowledges the AMF?s decision, but continues to assert that the people involved acted in good faith. We are convinced that these team members did not intentionally commit any acts contrary to market regulations.
Similarly, given the processes and timetables involved in the production of major games at our company and within our industry in general, we believe that at the time they carried out their transactions these employees could not have been aware of or anticipate the subsequent decision to postpone the game that would be taken by Yves Guillemot on ...