#White collar crime:
The mayor of Fréjus summoned to appear in court on 30 September on charges of unlawful taking of interests
The Draguignan public prosecutor’s office announced that David Rachline, mayor of Fréjus since 2014 and vice-president of the Rassemblement National, has been summoned to appear before the criminal court on 30 September 2025. He is being charged of unlawful taking of interests with regards to the conditions under which he was appointed to the management of two semi-public companies, Fréjus Aménagement and Gestion du port de Fréjus. David Rachline denies the allegations and stated in a press release that a report by the PACA regional audit chamber on the management acts and public contracts of the town of Fréjus finding no criminal offence would be published shortly. > Read article
Paprec agrees to pay a €17.5 million fine to settle its corruption and cartel proceedings
On Tuesday, 11 February 2025, the President of the Judicial Court of Paris approved a convention judiciaire d’intérêt public (French DPA) between the Paprec group and the French National Financial Prosecutor’s Office for a public interest fine of €17.5 million. This agreement has been signed to drop proceedings against Paprec for tax fraud laundering, favoritism concealment, active corruption of a public official and illicit cartel, which allegedly took place between 2013 and 2022. The investigation launched by the PNF in 2020 covered a number of issues, including undeclared cash withdrawals and irregularities in the procurement of public contracts. > Read article
#Anti-bribery and Corruption:
France falls in the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index: an unprecedented democratic alert
Transparency International published its 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, which is based on data including opinions of experts and business leaders on various corruptible behaviors in the public sector and covers 180 countries. France obtained a score of 67, ranking 25th in the world, down five places on the previous year. It should be noted that countries considered “fully democratic” have an average index of 73 and those “presenting an open civic space” have an average index of 70. Transparency International France considers that “this drop, unprecedented since the index was created in 1995, highlights structural flaws in the fight against corruption, aggravated by recent scandals and a loss of confidence in democratic institutions”. > Read article
#International sanctions:
Following Donald Trump’s announcement of sanctions against the ICC, 79 countries denounce the increased risk of “impunity for the most serious crimes”
On 7 February, 79 countries that are parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared that the decree signed by President Donald Trump against the ICC was an attack on its independence. Indeed, the American president considers that the court has carried out “illegal actions”, and his decree provides for a ban on entry into the United States of ICC’s directors, employees and agents, as well as a freeze on the assets of those persons held in the United States. This American decision was deplored not only by the ICC, but also by the United Nations and the European Union, which denounced a threat to the independence of the ICC and, more broadly, to the international justice system as a whole, to the rule of law and to the protection of human rights. > Read article
#Dispute resolution & regulatory investigations:
QWANT: the CNIL considers that the search engine processes personal data and issues a reminder of its legal obligations
French company QWANT, a search engine that promotes respect for the privacy of its users by limiting personal data collection, has been reminded of its legal obligations by the CNIL for violating the GDPR. This follows a complaint filed with the CNIL in 2019 for failure to apply the regulations on personal data, the complainants considering that the data transmitted to Microsoft by QWANT did not represent anonymous data as the latter claimed, but personal data. The President of the CNIL justified the choice of a simple reminder of legal obligations, which did not constitute a sanction stricto sensu, on the grounds that the company was seeking to develop a search engine that limited data collection, that it had amended its privacy policy in various languages and that it had demonstrated good faith and cooperation throughout the procedure. > Read article
