FRANCE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Eric Weil, Victor Gozzerino and Giada Cancemi, Weil & Associés
responses under an ambiguous presentation could therefore expose its publisher or operator to liability. Here again, the AI system will not itself bear liability. Responsibility will fall on the legal entity that publishes, markets, configures or makes the service available. This area of litigation is expected to develop further in France. As an illustration, a complaint is currently pending before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, filed on 4 March 2026 by Nippon Life Insurance Company of America against OpenAI, alleging, among other things, the unlicensed practice of law via ChatGPT. The End of the CJIP? Approaching its tenth anniversary, the Convention Judiciaire d ’ Intérêt Public (CJIP) remains a subject of debate in French white-collar criminal law. Introduced by the Sapin 2 Act of 9 December 2016 and codified at Article 41-1-2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the CJIP is an alternative resolution mech - anism that allows the public prosecutor to refrain from bringing criminal charges against a corporate entity under investigation, provided it agrees to enter into a negotiated agreement subject to judicial supervi - sion. Its scope covers corruption, influence peddling, tax fraud and money laundering. Since the Act of 24 December 2020, it has been extended to environmen - tal offences. In exchange for extinguishing the public prosecution, the entity undertakes a number of obligations: pay - ment of a public interest fine to the Treasury (capped at 30% of average annual turnover), implementation of a compliance programme under the supervision of the Agence Française Anticorruption (AFA), and, where applicable, compensation of identified victims. The agreement must be validated by the relevant Court at a public hearing and subsequently published. One of the most distinctive features of the CJIP is that it carries no finding of guilt. The entity is not the subject of a criminal conviction, avoids an entry on its criminal record and retains access to public procure - ment. The CJIP does not, however, protect the natural
persons involved, such as directors and officers, who remain liable to individual prosecution. France was long criticised for the weakness of its crim - inal response to major international corruption cases, at a time when US and UK authorities were actively resolving such matters through deferred prosecution agreements. By equipping the French prosecutor with a comparable instrument, France has reasserted its role in the resolution of transnational investigations. A recent case illustrates this new dimension and the international reach of the mechanism. In the BALT USA LLC matter, validated on 19 March 2026 by the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris , the company agreed to pay a public interest fine of EUR1.765 million and to implement a three-year compliance programme under the supervision of the AFA, as part of a co-ordinated resolution with the US Department of Justice, which entered into a concurrent Declination agreement. Further recent cases confirm that the CJIP is now firm - ly embedded in the landscape of economic crime, and demonstrate its effectiveness. In the so-called “cum- cum” cases, concerning dividend arbitrage schemes, the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris validated two significant CJIPs: the first with Crédit Agricole CIB, on 8 Septem - ber 2025, for a public interest fine of EUR88.25 million; the second with HSBC Bank plc, on 8 January 2026, for a public interest fine of EUR267.531 million. Yet the growing effectiveness of the CJIP has simul - taneously intensified criticism of the instrument. Chief among these is the charge that it constitutes a two- tier criminal justice system, accessible only to enti - ties capable of paying substantial fines and conduct - ing sophisticated negotiations with the prosecution. Critics argue that it weakens the deterrent effect of criminal law, obscures the clarity of the sanction and undermines the principle of equality before the law, with victims receiving less consideration than in con - ventional proceedings. This debate resurfaced acutely in 2026 in the context of legislative proposals on the prevention of social and tax fraud, when the Assemblée nationale adopted Amendment No 696, which sought the outright aboli - tion of the CJIP regime.
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