The Liège council chamber has decided to refer François Fornieri and Samuel Di Giovanni to the criminal court for having, to varying degrees, participated in insider trading in connection with the purchase of Mithra shares. The council chamber approved transactions for the wife of the latter and a banker and ordered a dismissal for Lucien D’Onofrio.
The order of the council chamber partly followed the indictment of the prosecution which requested the referral of all the accused to the trial court. The council chamber did not follow the prosecution for Lucien D’Onofrio.
Lucien D’Onofrio satisfied with the dismissal
Between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, François Fornieri would have bought shares in the security company Protection Unit for an amount of 890,000 euros. He is not prosecuted for this fact as such. But according to the prosecution, this operation was closely followed by a disputed purchase of Mithra shares for an amount of 810,000 euros by Samuel Di Giovanni, a friend of François Fornieri and founder of Protection Unit. Around the same time, Lucien D’Onofrio, an acquaintance of the first two, also bought shares in the pharmaceutical company for around 500,000 euros. The council chamber considered that there were not sufficient charges to refer him to court.
Stock purchases before the launch of a drug
Also during the same disputed period, a banker and the wife of Samuel Di Giovanni bought shares for just under 10,000 euros. Operations that took place a few days before the announcement by Mithra of the launch of a new drug. According to the auditors, this announcement might have resulted in a jump in the share price of the pharmaceutical company and therefore allow them to obtain significant profits on their operations.
On April 28, 2021, the three main suspects were heard. During a previous hearing, the prosecution requested dismissals for forgery, use of forgery and money laundering, and the dismissal of the defendants for insider trading, considering that there were clues.
The lawyers had all pleaded acquittal and their clients and denied any fraudulent intent. “It’s disgusting,” exclaimed Lucien D’Onofrio, at the end of the last hearing. “We put my name to put on a show.”
As for François Fornieri, he said he did not understand what D’Onofrio was doing on the benches. “He is a person who invests in Liège and we come to annoy him. It has nothing to do with it.”
The council chamber considered that there were clues for two of the accused. Lucien D’Onofrio is therefore cleared of the suspicions that weighed on him.