SCAN THE ECO – Finance Minister present on Wednesday its draft law against corporate corruption. It updates a law dating from 1993 (when there was no Internet), and includes, by the way, some “Macron measures.”
the admonitions are repeated every year: France, 6th world power, is lagging behind in the fight against corruption and transparency in economic life. So the executive starts to catch up: creation of a national agency to fight against international corruption, lobbying supervision, protection of whistleblowers … Finance Minister Michel Sapin this Wednesday in Council Ministers its anti-corruption arsenal under the law called “Tree 2″ ..
note that the device called “plea bargain” appear more (the Council of State retoqué the measure last Thursday). However, some amazing additions contained therein, such as the doubling of sales authorized for auto-entrepreneurs … Nothing to do? Indeed. But parliamentary calendar requires some measurements Macron law came to fit into the Sapin Act 2. The detailed item.
• Why it is called “law fir 2 “?
this Act called” tree 2 “comes refresh an anti-corruption law that Michel Sapin itself (then minister in the government of Pierre Beregovoy) had passed. .. in 1993. a law perfectly obsolete as the Internet did not exist (really) again and focused on corruption in the country. “Tree 2″ aims to fill these gaps and turns to the fight against international bribery in a connected world. The Government intends to adopt the law Sapin 2 by the end of five years.
• The creation of a new anti-corruption agency
national Agency for fight against corruption will be created and “will have its budget and its independence of decision.” This new entity will replace the Central Service for Prevention of Corruption created in 1993 (which had no power of investigation) and will be placed under the joint authority of the Ministers of Finance and Justice. It will monitor the implementation of corporate anti-corruption plan (more than 500 employees and whose turnover exceeds EUR 100 million), and may punish breaches and make them public.
• Criminal penalties for international bribery
Among the future obligations of companies that have operations abroad: create an internal regulation and a code of conduct whose relevance will be checked by this new agency. It will also be shown a new crime, the corruption of public officials abroad. Which will penalize, via simplified procedures, officer “of a French company, and ordinarily resident in France of foreign nationality, for acts of corruption committed abroad.” For example, a foreign public official who negotiates a kickback to obtain a public contract can be criminally convicted and not only morally.
• The “plea bargain” abandoned
The State Council issued a negative opinion last Thursday to the device of “public interest netting agreement” (CCIP) also called “plea bargain.” The measure was therefore removed from the Sapin Act 2. This highly symbolic proposal, intended to give the companies suspected of corruption -plafonnée fined 30% of their average turnover for the last three years-on the model US of “pleading guilty” instead of disappearing into heavy litigation, long and never lead to sanctions in France.
the French justice uttered no conviction for bribery of foreign public officials in the past 15 years
in fact, the French justice uttered no conviction for bribery of foreign public officials over the last fifteen years, particularly because of the slowness of procedures. At the same time, hundreds of measures were taken in the US and nearly 50 in Germany. Several French groups have had to pay fines to the US justice, like BNP Paribas (8.9 billion), Credit Agricole (700 million) Total (400 million), Alcatel-Lucent (137 million) and Alstom (772 million).
If the device of “plea bargaining” is defended by Transparency International in the name of pragmatism, it is criticized by NGOs as Anticor or Oxfam and the Union of judiciary, who fear a “lack of responsibility (…) and because of impunity” for companies. The measure could, however, be re-introduced during the discussions in the Assembly or Senate. “We’ll see if parliamentarians want to take the subject,” slipped Michel Sapin in the JDD on Sunday.
• Better protection of launchers warning
the new agency will also be responsible for protecting whistleblowers, those citizens who, faced with an illegal act can constitute a danger to human or interest General, report it to civil society and government. Among the most famous whistleblower Julian Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, who revealed top secret information to the NSA, Hervé Falciani, which shook the HSBC bank in connection with the case “swiss leaks” , and Antoine Deltour that triggered the scandal “LuxLeaks.”
JDD March 27, Michel Sapin has proposed creating a “single protection status for all whistleblowers “. He added that the new National Agency for fight against corruption will defend “whistleblowers against retaliation, de-identify (ra) and their reporting pren (dra) bear their legal costs s they must defend themselves against unjustified attacks or sanctions. ” The associations “as Anticor or Transparency International, which can have information from whistleblowers” will also apply to this organization to “file a complaint with a civil party in the case of inertia of the prosecutor “did he further stated. Note also that the Socialist MP Yann Galut filed last December a bill, presented as “the most advanced in Europe”, which includes the establishment of a national agency for the alert.
“” PORTRAIT – swiss leaks: Hervé Falciani, the whistleblower waving HSBC
“” What is the psychological profile of whistleblowers
If the groups of influence are already obliged since 2013 to declare in a register to be able to intervene in the national Assembly or the Senate, the 2 Sapin law wants to create a national register of lobbyists, which would be placed under the supervision of the High authority for the transparency of public life (HATVP) to “improve transparency in relations between the executive and its officials a hand and on the other “interest representatives. Bercy stresses the need to be registered on the register accessible by all to “practice before the state representative role of interest”.
In addition, the “gifts” like restaurants, travel and other gifts in kind offered by a public official lobbies will now framed and even forbidden beyond a “significant value”, otherwise sanctions.
• a package of measures in the wake Macron
the Tree 2 bill also inherits a series of measures in the text on “new economic opportunities” (Noe) Emmanuel Macron, the executive has finally decided to present separately for parliamentary calendar issues.
– autoentrepreneurs could benefit from a boost with the doubling of microenterprise activity threshold (ex-auto-entrepreneurs) 32,900 euros for services activities and 82,200 euros for activities commerciales- Emmanuel Macron wanted to see triple. What scolded artisans. Other measures soften access to certain professions to open young people without qualifications. Remember that this point was screaming hairdressers
-. The bill provides for the reform of the prudential framework of the supplementary pension management agencies companies to direct their funds of around 130 billion euros to the financing of innovative companies.
– advertising for trading online could be prohibited while the French continue to improvise trader and leave there all their feathers, despite the warnings of . AMF
other points of law Sapin 2: the financial markets authority (AMF) would see its capacity strengthened to better track the stock market offenses; the employment center agents might request information from banks and government agencies to better detect cases of benefit fraud; measures would require manufacturers to publish their accounts -a promise made to farmers in crisis, early March.
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