Jean Marie Messier

Warner Music Group Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. faces preliminary charges of insider trading in France as part of a probe into alleged wrongdoing at French media and telecom group Vivendi , judicial officials said. Bronfman, former executive vice chairman of Vivendi, is suspected of insider trading in connection with a sale of Vivendi shares in January 2000, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. Bronfman's lawyer said his client "has cooperated fully with French inquiries" and has not violated any French laws.

Jean-Marie Messier, the beleaguered former chief executive of Vivendi Universal, asked Monday to be placed under investigation in a judicial probe into alleged share price manipulation by the French media and entertainment company. Messier, who left Vivendi in July 2002, said in a statement that he accepted responsibility for a share buyback the previous year, which the company's accusers say broke French stock market laws.

From New York penthouse to Paris jail cell. Jean-Marie Messier's arrest for suspected insider trading and share price manipulation is a new low for the former boss of Vivendi Universal, who once made headlines with his jet-setting lifestyle. Messier presented himself voluntarily at fraud police headquarters in Paris and was taken into custody Monday, almost two years after being ousted from the top job at the media and telecommunications group.

French investigators moved toward prosecuting former Vivendi Universal Chairman Jean-Marie Messier, placing him under formal investigation today for suspected financial wrongdoing, his lawyer said. Magistrates notified Messier that he was being investigated -- a step short of formal charges -- at a hearing that lasted into the early hours of this morning, lawyer Olivier Metzner said. Messier was then released from custody. Messier had been held in custody since Monday.

Two years ago, Jean-Marie Messier slept in a $17-million penthouse on New York's Park Avenue. Monday night, he slept on a mattress on the floor of a tiny room inside a detention center in Paris after a day of interrogations by France's financial investigative brigade. "It was reasonably uncomfortable, but it was clean," the former chairman of the Vivendi Universal media empire said Thursday in his first interview since being released.

French regulators fined Vivendi Universal and its former boss Jean-Marie Messier nearly $1.4 million each for deceiving investors with inaccurate financial communications. The Financial Market Authority's ruling cleared Messier of insider trading but found that he consistently misstated cash flow in 2001-02 and used false accounting to hide the true level of the media conglomerate's debt. Messier's lawyer said his client would appeal the fine.

Vivendi Universal gave then-Chief Executive Jean-Marie Messier a 10% pay raise last year, only to later oust him for putting the French media giant on the path of financial disaster. In its annual report released Wednesday, Vivendi said it paid Messier $6 million in 2002 -- the same year Vivendi recorded a net loss of $25.5 billion because of massive write-downs in the value of its media assets.

Amid speculation that former Vivendi Universal Chief Executive Jean-Marie Messier dumped more than 200,000 shares in the months leading up to Vivendi's financial crisis last summer, Messier produced a statement from his own broker indicating he amassed more shares during that critical period.

French bank BNP Paribas denied that it incorrectly accounted for the shareholdings of former Vivendi Universal Chief Executive Jean-Marie Messier in December 2001. The bank, which tracks share sales of Vivendi directors, issued the statement after Messier complained that Vivendi had incorrectly suggested he sold more than 200,000 shares in the first half of 2002, instead of late 2001. Messier has blamed an administrative error at the bank.