Paris (AFP)

On the one hand, "the world of money and on the other hand, the world of good people" who thought they were investing in a safe investment: the civil parties claimed on Tuesday more than 5 million euros from the Natixis bank , accusing him of "misleading" communication during the "subprime" crisis.

Tuesday's hearing in the Natixis trial at the Paris Criminal Court was mainly devoted to the pleadings of the civil parties.

"There is a fundamental difference between the civil parties and Natixis. Natixis is expressed in billions of euros, the civil parties are expressed quite simply in euros", hammered during his pleading Me Alain Géniteau, who represents 746 small carriers led by Adam, the Association for the Defense of Minority Shareholders.

Between the claims for compensation for loss of "loss of opportunity" and those for non-pecuniary damage, the various civil party lawyers claimed on Tuesday more than 5 million euros from Natixis.

The establishment, a subsidiary of the mutual banking group BPCE, has been on trial since March 29 before the Paris Criminal Court for having underestimated in its communication during the "subprime" crisis of 2008 its indirect exposure to it.

The bank went public at the end of 2006, at a price of just over 19 euros per share, a few months before the crisis in the United States broke out, which had dragged the rest of global finance in its wake. .

At the end of 2006, "our advisers from Caisse d'Épargne and Banque Populaire courted us in a frenzy to buy Natixis shares, the objective set for our advisers was to raise a total of 5 billion euros from good people. and they succeeded, "said Me Géniteau, stressing that" the Natixis share was presented to us as a substitute for the Livret A, which is as safe and more profitable ".

In November 2007, in a statement on its results for the third quarter of the year, the French bank had indicated that the risks borne by the bank on "subprime", a type of mortgage loan distributed in the United States, were "limited ".

The crisis will ultimately be expensive for the young bank, which will see its price collapse, from 19.55 euros when it was floated on the stock market at the end of 2006, to less than one euro per share in 2009.

The prosecution's requisitions are scheduled for Wednesday, before the defense pleadings.

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