A newly disclosed 2002 agreement is putting LVMH’s past account of its Hermès stake-building under fresh scrutiny as Nicolas Puech, one of Hermès’ founding-family heirs, pursues €14 billion in damages over shares he says disappeared from his control.
LVMH told a Paris court in June that it had never contemplated acquiring Puech’s stake. But Reuters reported Thursday that documents it reviewed show LVMH signed an agreement on November 12, 2002, to purchase millions of Hermès International shares from Puech and other family heirs through arrangements involving Puech’s longtime wealth manager, Eric Freymond.
The agreement is central because Puech says he did not learn until 2022 that his roughly 6% Hermès holding was gone. At current prices, Reuters estimated the position would be worth about $10 billion. Puech filed a civil action in France in 2025 seeking €14 billion in damages.
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The defendants include LVMH, chairman Bernard Arnault, and companies affiliated with Freymond.
LVMH disputes any suggestion that it took Puech’s shares without authorization. In a 2017 Swiss court filing cited by Reuters, the group said the 2002 agreement was never executed and that it could not verify whether Puech had authorized Freymond to sell his stock. LVMH also said the agreement was later put on hold and destroyed in late 2010.
Reuters also reported that LVMH and the Arnault family holding company paid Freymond’s management firm at least $20 million in commissions and fees between 2001 and 2009.
The relationship between Freymond and LVMH is also part of an ongoing French criminal investigation. Paris prosecutors said in May that Swiss lawyer Alexandre Montavon had been placed under formal investigation for suspected complicity in breach of trust involving Puech’s Hermès shares for the alleged benefit of LVMH.
Montavon has denied wrongdoing.
The dispute reaches back to LVMH’s years-long accumulation of Hermès shares. France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers fined LVMH €8 million in 2013 for disclosure failures tied to the preparation of its stake-building operation and its 2008 and 2009 financial statements.
LVMH later reached a 2014 agreement with Hermès to distribute its Hermès shares to LVMH shareholders, ending the public corporate battle.
Reuters said Puech declined comment because of the criminal investigation, while Hermès also declined comment.
