The Areva group ended the proceedings against it and the Orano group, which now owns its mining activities, for events that took place in Mongolia, by signing a CJIP (Convention judiciaire d’intérêt public)[1] (French DPA),[2] approved on 9 December 2024 by the President of the Paris Judicial Court.[3]
Under the terms of this CJIP, signed for acts that could be considered as bribery of foreign public officials in Mongolia (I), Areva SA and Orano Mining SAS have respectively committed to pay a public interest fine of €4.8 million and to comply with a compliance program under the supervision of the French Anti-Corruption Agency (Agence française anti-corruption – AFA) (II).
This 22nd CJIP signed by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (Parquet national financier – PNF) is the last and only the fourth to be signed in matters of probity and taxation in 2024, after those signed by SARL Gudno (tax fraud),[4] SARL Sotec (complicity in the active corruption of foreign public officials)[5] and Danske Bank A/S (laundering of tax fraud in a criminal organisation),[6] the year 2024 having indeed given greater prominence to the development of environmental [7]-[8].
I. Areva SA and Orano Mining SAS agreed to sign a CJIP for bribery of foreign public officials
This CJIP follows a TRACFIN (Intelligence Processing and Action Against Clandestine Financial Circuits) alert on 13 May 2015 regarding a suspicious transfer of €725,000 made by the company Eurotradia International, of which Areva group was one of the clients, to a Mongolian businessman, and then the investigation opened by the OCLCIFF (Central Office for Combating Corruption and Financial and Tax Offences) on 3 June 2015.[9]
This procedure, which lasted almost ten years, revealed that Areva group, which began operating in Mongolia in the 1990s, had entered into a framework agreement for consultancy services with Eurotradia International on 1 July 2010 via its parent company Areva SA, and that Eurotradia International had then transferred funds to a Mongolian businessman who, in turn, allegedly transferred part of these funds to public officials in order to bribe them.[10]
Indeed, it appears that (i) pursuant to this framework agreement, Areva group, through its subsidiary Areva Mines SA, appointed Eurotradia International for a financial, legal and commercial assistance mission on 15 October 2013, paid €4 million, after having obtained exploration and exploitation licenses allowing it to develop a mining activity in Mongolia,[11] and then that (ii) Eurotradia International entered into a consultancy agreement on 9 April 2014 with a Mongolian businessman to provide advice and assistance for Areva group’s business in Mongolia, for which it paid him €1.275 million.[12]
However, this businessman did not in fact complete the tasks for which he was appointed, which included signing a shareholders’ agreement and a license transfer process, and the funds he received from Eurotradia International were invested in a real estate project majority-owned by a Mongolian public official and also benefited another Mongolian public official, both of whom were involved in the process of implementing the Areva group’s mining activities in Mongolia.[13]
The PNF considered that these facts were likely to result in the offence of bribery of foreign public officials provided for in article 435-3 of the French Criminal Code.[14]
II. Areva SA and Orano Mining SAS respectively agreed to pay a public interest fine and to comply with a compliance program under the supervision of the AFA
In accordance with standard CJIP practice, Areva SA agreed to pay a public interest fine of €4.8 million to the French Public Treasury, calculated on the basis of the benefits obtained from the breaches and the application of major factors (size of the company, use of an intermediary, involvement of public officials and serious disturbance of public order) and minor factors (corrective measures, internal investigations, unicity of occurrence and cooperation through the submission of an internal investigation report and diligent responses to the questions asked by the PNF).[15]
However, the PNF considered the complex organisation of the companies involved in determining the amount of this fine. Indeed, the PNF :
- Based the limit of the fine on Areva SA’s average turnover of 2018, 2019 and 2020, rather than on the last three annual turnovers known at the time the breaches were established, as provided for in article 41-1-2 of the French Criminal Procedure Code,[16] due to Areva SA’s change of activity and the transfer of its assets to Orano SA;[17]
- Set the benefits obtained from the breaches on the amount Areva Mines SA had agreed to pay Eurotradia International, i.e. €4 million, and not on the real benefits resulting from the breaches, since Areva SA was unable to prove the economic profitability of its project to operate in Mongolia and, consequently, withhold only the afflictive[18] part of the fine and not the restitutive[19] part, since the benefits obtained from the breaches were not perceived by Areva SA and will not be perceived by Orano SA.[20]
In addition, Orano Mining SAS, which has taken over and developed the former mining activities of the Areva group, agreed to comply with a compliance program under the supervision of the AFA aimed at ensuring that it will operate in a clean and ethical manner in the future, and to set aside €1.5 million to cover the costs that will be incurred.[21] On the basis of a review report drafted by the AFA prior to the CJIP, it has been established that this compliance process will apply to the entire Orano group, will last for three years and that the AFA will have the option of terminating it ahead of schedule, at the end of a two-year period, provided that Orano group has then complied with all its obligations.[22]
While this CJIP closes the case for the legal entities, the individuals are not eligible to such procedural closure and therefore their case is not over.