ASML's early earnings publication a 'human mistake', shareholder group says

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A group of Dutch shareholders on Wednesday reacted with dismay to chip equipment maker's ASML's accidental early publication of its third-quarter earnings, but were also sympathetic to what they called a "human mistake."

"For a company which is the largest listed company in the Netherlands and also the leading technology company in Europe ... it is not what we would expect from ASML," said Gerben Everts, who heads Dutch shareholder rights association VEB, in an interview.

"They must be ashamed that this happened and that it was so prominently in the news."

ASML accidentally published the press release containing its third quarter earnings on its website during trading hours, a half day earlier than planned, where they were spotted and republished by Bloomberg, followed by other news organizations.

The company confirmed the press release's authenticity and released the rest of its earnings information about a half hour later.

It included a downgrade in sales and bookings forecasts for 2025, leading to the biggest selloff in its shares in 20 years.

CEO Christophe Fouquet apologized on a call with analysts on Wednesday, calling it "unfortunate" given the seriousness of the forecast downgrade.

A spokesperson for the Netherlands' Financial Markets Authority, which oversees such incidents, said they could not comment on individual company investigations.

"An important point is that information must be distributed to shareholders at the same time," the spokesperson said.

ASML had a similar incident during its 2022 investor day, when an SEC filing on the company's outlook was published ahead of Dutch schedule.

In a short statement on Tuesday's incident, ASML said the publication was due to a "technical error."

"You can call it a technical mistake, but in essence this is a human mistake" said VEB's Everts. "Everybody makes mistakes."

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Varun H K)