Almost five years ago, France enacted its anti-corruption legislation, Sapin II.1 The law was considered ground-breaking at the time and introduced a number of important innovations, including the ability for companies to be offered and to negotiate French-style deferred prosecution agreements called Convention judiciaire d’intérêt public (CJIP), the broadening of the scope of certain criminal law provisions, and the creation of the French Anti-Corruption Agency (AFA).
In December 2020, the Law Commission of the French Parliament asked two members of the French National Assembly to prepare a report assessing the implementation of Sapin II. Their July 2021 report included 50 recommendations and inspired a bill introduced at the National Assembly on 19 October 2021 (the “Bill”) proposing to strengthen the legal framework underpinning the fight against corruption in many significant ways. In this article, we provide an overview of the changes proposed which, if adopted, will dramatically change the current Sapin II framework, providing additional protections for companies and their employees, but which will also significantly increase obligations and risks for companies operating in France.
New compliance obligations for French subsidiaries of foreign companies
Sapin II currently requires companies that have more than 500 employees and a turnover above 100 million per year at group level and where the parent company is headquartered in France to have appropriate compliance...
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