SocGen sues Mail on Sunday over 'disaster' article

PARIS: Societe Generale said on Thursday it was suing Britain's Associated Newspapers over an article in the Mail on Sunday which alleged that the French bank was on the "brink of disaster."

A spokeswoman confirmed the legal action reported by the Financial Times, which said the bank alleges in papers lodged with a London court that it suffered "substantial damage to its reputation and prejudice to its trade."

The article which said Societe Generale was in a "perilous" state and on the "brink of disaster" appeared in the Mail on Sunday and on the Mail Online website on August 7.

Shares in the bank, one of the top banks in France, plummeted more than 8.0 percent the day after the piece was published and in total have dropped 43 percent since the article.

The next day the Mail on Sunday published an online apology for the article and said that "we now accept that this was not true."

Societe Generale was the subject of numerous rumours in August which caused its stocks to plummet and led France's AMF stock market regulator to open a probe. The results of that inquiry have not yet been released.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011