A former top Airbus executive and current head of a German EADS subsidiary, Andreas Sperl, was detained for questioning in France on Wednesday over alleged insider trading at EADS, sources close to the case said.
The 61-year-old Sperl is one of 17 people suspected by French stock market investigators of having used inside knowledge about production delays at Airbus, the main subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence Space Company (EADS), to make massive gains on share sales.
A former Airbus chief financial officer who now heads an EADS plant in the eastern German city of Dresden, Sperl is the first serving senior manager at the group to be questioned in the insider trading probe, in which three former EADS bosses have so far been charged.
He was being questioned by French financial investigators, who can hold him in custody for up to 48 hours, after which he could be brought before a judge to face possible charges, the sources said. According to a report by France's financial market regulator AMF, Sperl sold 58,000 EADS shares in November 2005 and March 2006, earning 816,000 euros (1.28 million dollars), before Airbus revealed delays with its A380 superjumbo.
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