Marco Perelli-Cippo stepped down as chief executive in 2004, but he remained a board member.
The finance committee at France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers said he told a friend that the Marnier-Lapostolle family shareholders were poised to sell their stake while at a dinner party on March 1, 2016.
His friend, Davide Blei, was fined €100,000, according to a decision published on Monday. Both men deny the accusation.
The regulators said the dinner party took place on the same day as a Campari board meeting, and that Blei opened a securities account the next day. He then made €34,000 on the trades.
His lawyer, Romuald Cohana, said he is likely to appeal the fine. “We are astounded by such a lack of critical thinking and such indiscriminate application of the body of clues method which poses real legal problems,” said Cohana.
In a separate part of the case, three other men – Gérard Monnet, Michael Aubourg and Cyril de Bournet – were fined after they were accused of profiting from insider knowledge of the Grand Marnier deal.
