Vivendi Universal and its former chief executive Jean-Marie Messier have each been fined 1m euros ($1.3m; £690,000) by French regulators.
The fines come after a 15-month probe into allegations the media giant misled investors after a costly acquisition program went wrong
Jean-Marie Messier, former chief executive of French media giant Vivendi Universal, has been taken into custody.
Mr Messier is being questioned as part of an investigation into “financial misappropriation”, Paris police said.
The arrest follows a probe into Vivendi ex-finance chief Guillaume Hannezo launched earlier this month
French police have searched the offices of the country’s stock market regulator as part of a probe into an allegedly illegal shares buyback by Vivendi.
The French conglomerate is under investigation for illegally buying back its own stock in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in America.
It is claimed the company, which has previously faced fraud charges in the US, wanted to maintain its share price