From the New York Times:

“A French inquiry into possible insider trading at the parent company of Airbus has gained fresh momentum after the country’s financial market regulator submitted documents about the investigation to prosecutors .

A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor confirmed today that Xavière Simeoni, the investigating magistrate who began looking into the share transactions a year ago, had received the report from the regulator, the Financial Markets Authority. She declined to discuss its contents because the investigation is continuing.”

According to the story, Le Figaro reported today that it had been shown copies of a “preliminary report” filed by the regulator that indicates the investigation is now focusing on 21 top managers, including including the two co-chief executives of EADS at the time, Noël Forgeard and Thomas Enders, as well as Arnaud Lagardère and Manfred Bischoff, who were the co-chairmen.

The regulator also cited a December 2005 memo addressed to the French finance minister at the time, Thierry Breton, warning that EADS would soon enter a “zone of turbulence” and advising the government to pare its 15 percent stake, the newspaper said.

That last tidbit would seem to be pretty damning to me. Especially since the news that the A380 was going to be delayed was not publicly acknowledged until…June 2006. The other interesting note about this new information is the number of top level execs now apparently being investigated.

It would appear that more than a few Airbus and EADS top level folks were cashing in their shares that spring. A lot of shares.

Most attention at the time was focused on Forgeard. Between his personal accounts and trust fund accounts of his children, options worth almost $10 million euros were exercised during one one-week period in March of 2006. The options delivered almost $3.5 million in profit — based on current exchange rates.

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