Compliance

On October 16, 2023, the Internal Market and International Trade committees of the European Parliament adopted their position on the future EU Regulation “on prohibiting products made with forced labor on the Union market” (the “Regulation”).

This Regulation was proposed by the European Commission on September 14, 2022, with the aim of combating forced labor and promoting corporate sustainability standards.

On a global scale, the use of forced labor remains widespread, affecting some 27.6 million people worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization (“ILO”).

On May 3, 2023, the European Commission presented proposals that represent a milestone in the fight against corruption at national and EU levels.

The proposed measures aim to prevent corruption and create a culture of integrity, criminalize all corruption offences under the United Nations Convention against Corruption, harmonize penalties across the European Union and establish a dedicated common foreign and security policy sanctions regime to target serious acts of corruption worldwide.

The second session of the Compliance Task Force created by European American Chamber of Commerce Auvergne Rhone-Alps (EACC) in partnership with Soulier Avocats took place on June 8, 2023.

The theme of this second session was “A comparative analysis of the fight against organized economic crime in France and the USA”.

Two new Conventions Judiciaires d’Intérêt Public (French-style Deferred Prosecution Agreements, hereinafter “CJIPs”) have been published on the website of the Ministry of Justice, following their approval by the Paris Judicial Court on May 17, 2023.

These two CJIPs concern legal entities accused of having committed acts that could be classified as influence peddling for the first CJIP, and of having participated in irregularities in public procurement for the second CJIP.

In two judgments handed down on February 28, 2023, the summary judge of the Paris Judicial Court declared inadmissible the claims of several environmental protection associations seeking that TotalEnergies be ordered to comply with its duty of vigilance obligations under the Law No. 2017-399 of March 27, 2017.