Gemplus International SA reports the AMF’s decision from the Commission des Sanctions
Luxemburg, 3 February 2006, Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext:
LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP), the world’s leading provider of smart card
based solutions, today announces that the Commission des Sanctions of the AMF (Autorité
des Marchés Financiers) has notified GISA of its decision in connection with
the proceeding brought against Gemplus International (GISA), Marc Lassus, GISA’s
former chairman, Ron Mackintosh, GISA’s former interim Chief Executive Officer
and the audit firm, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, GISA’s auditors.
The Commission des Sanctions rejected most of the claims made against
GISA by its college. The Commission ruled that GISA had not communicated any
misleading information with respect to its accounting results for September
2001, November 2001 and July 2002. The Commission des sanctions also
noted that GISA was not required to make any provision in its 2001 financial
statements for the loan granted to its former chairman, Marc Lassus, by one of
GISA’s indirect subsidiaries in 2000, therefore ruling out the claim that these
financial statements were inaccurate.
The Commission des sanctions considered, however, that GISA had included
inaccurate information with respect to the Company’s security in connection with
the loan granted to Marc Lassus in its 2000 and 2001 documents de référence,
and had provided an imprecise description of its relationship with Differentis
in its document de référence for 2001.
The Commission des sanctions imposed upon GISA a fine of € 600,000, an
amount significantly lower than that initially mentioned in its report.
The Commission des sanctions considered that Marc Lassus, chairman of
GISA at the time of the relevant events, had provided inaccurate information to
the market with respect to the security in connection with the loan granted to
him by one of the group’s indirect subsidiaries, with the purpose of
deliberately misleading the market. The Commission imposed upon Marc Lassus a
fine of € 400,000, an amount very significantly higher than what was mentioned
in the report.
Finally, the Commission considered that the proceeding initiated against Mr.
Ron Mackintosh, former interim Chief Executive Officer of GISA, was groundless.
This proceeding involves GISA’s financial communication for the time period from
2001 to July 2002 and in no way relates to any subsequent period.
GISA, to which Marc Lassus has not yet repaid the above-mentioned loan, never
intended to circulate misleading information on the market, neither in
connection with security which the Company thought in good faith it benefited
from vis-à-vis Mr. Lassus, nor in connection with its relationship with
Differentis. Therefore, GISA has decided to appeal the decision of the AMF
before the Paris Court of Appeal. The € 600,000 corresponding to the fine have
been recorded as a provision in GISA’s financial statements for the fourth
quarter of 2005.
About Gemplus
Gemplus International S.A. (Euronext: LU0121706294 - GEM and NASDAQ: GEMP) is the world's leading player in the smart card industry in both revenue and total shipments (source: Gartner-Dataquest 2005, Frost & Sullivan, Datamonitor). It has sold over 5.5 billion smart cards.
Gemplus delivers a wide range of portable, personalized solutions in areas including Identity, Mobile Telecommunications, Public Telephony, Banking, Retail, Transport, Healthcare, WLAN, Pay-TV, e-government, and access control.
Gemplus' revenue in 2004 was 865 million Euros.
www.gemplus.com
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statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and
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believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we
cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Factors that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those estimated by the forward-looking
statements contained in this release include, but are not limited to: trends in wireless
communication and mobile commerce markets; our ability to develop new technology, and the
effects of competing technologies developed and expected intense competition generally in our
main markets; profitability of our expansion strategy; challenges to or loss of our intellectual
property rights; our ability to establish and maintain strategic relationships in our major
businesses; our ability to develop and take advantage of new software and services; and the
effect of future acquisitions and investments on our share price. Moreover, neither we nor any
other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of such forward-looking
statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this release speak only as of this
release. We are under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after this date
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results.
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