Compliance & Regulatory

The French Anticorruption Agency (Agence Française Anticorruption, hereinafter “AFA”) published its 2020 annual report in March 2021.

This provides the opportunity to review the key figures of its audit activities in one infographic, four years after its creation by the Law of December 9, 2016 on transparency, fight against corruption and modernization of economic life, known as the “Sapin II” Law.

While these figures help us identify a trend concerning the types of audits carried out and the entities concerned, the AFA could in the future extend these audits by deciding to subject more companies to the compliance scheme, as it seems to envisage in its latest guidelines.

Almost ten years after the Rana Plaza scandal and while many voices are being raised about human rights violations in the textile industry, the Paris Court of Appeals has recently issued a particularly interesting ruling combining corporate social responsibility and sudden termination of established business relationships.

Specifically, on March 24, 2021, it held that if a supplier fails to ensure that its subcontractors comply with its client’s code of ethics, the immediate termination of the business relationships cannot be considered as sudden within the meaning of Article L. 442-6 I §5 of the French Commercial Code.

When visiting a website or using mobile apps, users must be informed and give their consent before cookies or other trackers are deposited or read, unless these trackers benefit from one of the exemptions provided for by law.

Following the publication of its guidelines and recommendation on October 1, 2020, the French Data Protection Authority has given until March 31, 2021 to bring websites and mobile apps into compliance with the new rules.

In a fully reasoned ruling dated November 25, 2020, the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) has reversed a case law that had been established for more than twenty years in “merger by acquisition” transactions (i.e., when a company is merged into another): The acquiring company may now, under certain conditions, be held criminally liable for an offence committed by the acquired company prior to the merger and for which it had not been convicted.

On January 12, 2021, the French Anti-Corruption Agency published its new guidelines which will serve as the reference framework for its investigations, effective from July 13, 2021.

These new guidelines, which are both more demanding and pragmatic because they have been adapted to take into account the inspections and audits carried out by the AFA since the entry into force of the former guidelines, deserve, in our opinion, the full attention of entities subject to Article 17 of the Sapin II Law.

Companies placing hazardous mixtures on the market have to submit information about these mixtures to specific bodies appointed by European Union Member States. Poison centers use this information to give medical advice in case of an emergency.

The notification requirement, based on Annex VIII to the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation, applies from 1 January 2021.