On July 9, 2020, the French Anti-Corruption Authority (“AFA”) published its activity report for year 2019. This report provides the key figures of the initiatives that the AFA has carried out, namely trainings and outreach missions to increase anticorruption awareness among public and private actors. With respect to AFA controls, 36 new controls were carried out in 2019 – including 20 on economic actors and 16 on public actors – and an additional 4 pursuant to CJIPs.

The 2019 activity report also covers the notable developments at the AFA over the past year. It highlights the AFA’s contribution to the international assessments of France and the fight against corruption carried out by the United Nations and GRECO respectively, and to the preparation of the OECD assessment due to take place in 2021. The AFA also attended several roundtables, alongside the UK Serious Fraud Office, the World Bank and the OECD, and was present during the G20 summit.

The AFA elaborates on the phenomenon of corruption and provides indications on the anticorruption mechanisms to be adopted by different-sized companies. It states that while companies are progressing towards implementing effective anticorruption measures – providing the example of a sanctioned company that enhanced its compliance program before the date of the hearing before the AFA Enforcement Committee, thereby voiding the purpose of sanction – there remain issues to overcome, requiring enhanced administrative and judicial cooperation.