This is the second in our 2025 Year in Preview series examining important trends in white collar law and investigations in the coming year. We will be posting further installments in the series throughout the next several weeks. A companion piece, "Anticorruption and FCPA Enforcement: Takeaways and Lessons Heading into 2025," can be found here. Our previous post, "Health Care Fraud Enforcement in 2025," can be found here.
2024 was a particularly busy year in the European Union (EU) in the fight against corruption, marked by significant publications and enforcement actions from both European and Member State authorities. It's important to note that, pending the potential adoption of the proposal for a Directive on combating corruption from May 3, 2023, the EU still lacks a unified regulatory framework. As a result, some Member States have implemented their own national regulations regarding corruption prevention, which, aside from protections for whistleblowers, remain largely unharmonized. Similarly, when it comes to enforcement, while each EU Member State's national laws address criminal offenses related to bribery in both the public and private sectors, the definitions of these offenses and their penalties are not standardized. In this context, our report provides an overview of key publications and enforcement actions in 2024 and expected developments in 2025, both at the EU level (1) and at the national level in France (2).
For trends and developments related to anticorruption in the U.S., see today's companion piece from our U.S. colleagues.
ANTICORRUPTION IN THE EU – 2024 KEY DEVELOPMENTS
Key Updates from the European Public Prosecutor's Office ("EPPO")
EPPO's Annual Report Corruption-Related Key Takeaways
Published in March 2024, the EPPO's annual report comprises some key takeaways regarding the EPPO's enforcement actions. Notably, regarding corruption, the Report indicates that passive and active corruption on public officials (i.e., both the receipt of bribes and the offering and giving of bribes) represents 3% of the EPPO's investigated criminal offenses, with a total of 131 investigations. Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania are the top four countries where corruption investigations occurred.
The report also highlights some examples of common patterns regarding corruption offenses, such as:
- bribery of public officials in exchange for the awarding of EU funds to specific projects or service proposals;
- bribery of public officials in exchange for the approval of ineligible and inflated additional costs during the project execution phase; and
- bribery of a public official in return for influencing an ongoing EPPO investigation.
EPPO's Tendencies in 2024 Key Corruption Investigations
During 2024, several key investigations by the EPPO point to a trend in favor of public corruption investigations. Indeed, six key cases were related to corruption in the context of public projects, using European funds (e.g. the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the European Regional Development Fund), and involving the corruption of public officials: customs officers in Malta, mayors in Romania and Italy, and the general manager of a hospital in Czechia. In each of these investigations, both individuals (a minimum of five in each investigation) and entities (two companies specialized in clothing retail, companies active in earthquake-proofing and public infrastructure safety improvements and a company working in the field of sports center construction) were found to be involved.
European Commission's Report on Corruption Risk in the EU
This in-depth study published by the European Commission on November 4th, 2024, identifies the following sectors as the most exposed regarding the risk of corruption within the EU: healthcare, finance, public procurement, defense and security, construction and infrastructure, and sports.
The report provides for each the character (forms of corruption and actors), the causes and the consequences of corruption in each at-risk sector. For instance, in the healthcare sector, one form of corruption might be the inappropriate approval of products (character). This corruption risk may be emphasized by six main driving factors (citizens' great dependence on health services, complex governance structures with multiple stakeholders, extensive funds and resources, information asymmetry, regulatory weakness and limited transparency) and might have severe consequences: affected access to health services, compromised quality of healthcare, impact on equity (imposing a major burden on poorer and marginalized households), etc.
ANTICORRUPTION IN FRANCE – 2024 KEY DEVELOPMENTS AND WHAT TO KNOW HEADING INTO 2025
Updates from France's AFA (Agence Française Anticorruption)
Reorganization of the AFA
In December 2024, the AFA created two sub-departments responsible for both advisory and control missions dedicated to:
- Public-sector players, in particular, to address the growing risks affecting regalian functions, sometimes in conjunction with organized crime;
- Economic players to support the diversity and maturity of anticorruption measures in the private sector.
The AFA's restructuring included strengthening support, legal and communication functions, and European and international relations through the creation of a dedicated mission and unit.
As part of the restructuring, the AFA also launched an observatory on corruption, a new integrated body whose mission is to centralize and analyze data on breaches of probity, disseminate information and studies on these offences to public players, researchers and the public, and stimulate research on this subject. Therefore, the new observatory will produce in-depth analyses of corruption phenomena and promote exemplary initiatives to support the collective effort.
The AFA's New Practical Guide to Corporate Sponsorship Operations and Patronage Activities
In the context of an increase in sponsorship and patronage operations, the AFA published a non-binding practical guide that describes the situations and risk factors that companies may face when engaging in such operations. In terms of risk factors, the guide notably highlights beneficiary-related risk factors (e.g., geographical risk, dealings with public-sector entities, etc.) and transaction-related risk factors (e.g., public exposure, competitive environment, urgency, etc.). The guide also lists various risk-based approaches guided prevention (e.g., "strengthening governance and the role of senior management" and "mapping sponsorship- and patronage-related corruption risk") and detection measures (e.g., "opening up the internal whistleblowing system to the beneficiaries of sponsorship and patronage activities" and "anticorruption accounting controls in sponsorship and patronage activities") that companies should take into account for addressing the risks associated with sponsorship and patronage operations.
Key Takeaways From the Most Recent AFA Activity Report (July 2024) and National Diagnosis of Anticorruption Measures in French Companies (October 2024)
The AFA's last activity report underlines the agency's continued commitment to work alongside public and economic players to help them fight corruption, as the following numbers show:
- 37 new controls (i.e., administrative controls stemming from the AFA's administrative control power, enabling it to verify the reality and efficiency of anticorruption compliance mechanisms) were opened in 2023, including 22 on companies and 15 on public bodies;
- Six new judicial public interest agreements, "Conventions judiciaires d'intérêt public" (hereinafter, the "CJIP"), were concluded in 2023, including 5 for corruption and 1 for influence peddling, providing for an AFA compliance program;
- 435 external reports were received by the agency in 2023 (an increase of 40% in one year), a sign of growing public concern about breaches of probity.
Noteworthy 2024 Enforcement Actions from France's PNF (Parquet National Financier)
The CJIP – the "French DPA"
Introduced by the Sapin II Act, CJIPs are alternative measures to prosecution applicable to legal entities accused of corporate criminal offenses, including bribery. These measures allow the PNF to impose, notably, public interest fines, compliance programs monitoring (of maximum 3 years) and/or damages pursuant to Article 41-1-2 of the French code of criminal procedure.
In 2024, two CJIPs have been granted by the PNF for alleged bribery:
- The PNF entered a CJIP with SOTEC on July 1, 2024, for the infraction of the complicity of bribery of foreign public officials, resulting in a fine of €520,000;
- The PNF entered a CJIP with AREVA SA on December 2, 2024, for the infraction of bribery of foreign public officials, resulting in a fine of €4,800,000 and the mandatory implementation of a 3-year audit within the ORANO Group and its subsidiaries (which includes ex-ARENA mining activities).
Key Cases Before French Jurisdictions
In 2024, three key cases were brought before the French jurisdictions at the stage of investigation or resulting in the condemnation of the involved parties:
- On February 8, 2024, the Paris Criminal Court ("Tribunal correctionnel de Paris") sentenced Laurent de Gourcuff (founder of the hospitality company "Paris Society") for active corruption to a 2-year suspended prison sentence, a €150,000 fine, a 5-year ban on running a business and an ineligibility penalty for one year.
- In July 2024, the PNF initiated an investigation into THALES (a French group specializing in aerospace, defense and security technologies) for suspicions of corruption of foreign public officials; the company incurs a 10-year prison sentence and a €150,000 fine.
- On December 18, 2024, the French Supreme Court upheld the conviction against Nicolas Sarkozy (former French President) in the "Wiretapping Case"; the latter was sentenced for active corruption with a senior judge of the French Supreme Court to a 3-year prison sentence, including one year under electronic monitoring and an ineligibility penalty for three years.
AFA's Analysis of First-Instance Court Rulings on Breaches of Probity
The AFA's analysis of probity-related criminal offenses is based on 504 decisions handed down by French first-instance courts between 2021 and 2022. It reveals that bribery is the most frequent criminal offense, accounting for 36.9% of all offenses (with a majority of public officials' bribery). Moreover, in 13.29% of cases, several corruption offenses were prosecuted simultaneously, reflecting a global approach by criminal judges. Notably, 51.6% of the legal decisions analyzed involve the public sector, particularly local authorities, which account for almost half of all cases. Concerning the modes of operation, on average, 2.7 people are involved per case. Furthermore, regarding the court rulings, 92.4% of defendants are individuals, most of whom are public officials and company directors.
PNF's Major Cases to Watch in 2025
The Ghosn-Dati Case (PNF Final Indictment in November 2024)
Rachida Dati (former European deputy and current Ministry of Culture) was indicted in 2021 for passive corruption and passive influence peddling in the judicial case concerning Carlos Ghosn (former CEO of Renault Nissan, under international arrest warrant). The PNF suspects Rachida Dati received almost €900,000 between 2010 and 2012 for consultancy services without any actual work in return. A subsidiary allegedly made these payments of the Nissan group. On November 15, 2024, the PNF requested in its final indictment that Rachida Dati and Carlos Ghosn should be referred to the French criminal court. It is now up to the investigating judge to decide whether there will be a trial.
Opening of the Trial For Corruption and Illegal Campaign Financing (Sarkozy) in January 2025
Nicolas Sarkozy will be tried again before the Paris Criminal Court from January 6 to April 10 in the case of the Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. After a 10-year investigation, Nicolas Sarkozy is being prosecuted for several offenses, notably passive corruption for which he is accused of having solicited Libyan public funds to finance its 2007 election campaign in return for performing acts in his official capacity or acts facilitated by his position as President (the counterparties were of a diplomatic, economic and judiciary nature).
BROADER TRENDS AROUND THE WORLD
Heading into 2025, practitioners should be mindful of key developments in the EU and France.
Beyond the developments recapped there, regulators across the globe and notably in the U.S., have picked up on growing trends towards offering formal compliance guidance to regulated entities and encouraging whistleblowers to step forward through formal government programs.
Originally published 23 January 2025
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
