FRANCE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Xavier Pernot, Pierre Linais and Ony Rajaona, Jeantet
regime that would exclude Article 1225 of the French Civil Code. Consequently, both legal grounds can be invoked in a complementary manner, subject to demonstrating the breaches specific to each action relating to “the existence of ecological damage to be prevented or halted” in one case, and “to the inadequacy of the vigilance plan” in the other case. Details on the identification of the company summoned Another valuable insight is brought by those rulings on the qualité à defendre of the parties summoned. In the Suez case, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that, as a subsidiary of Suez SA, Vigie, Groupe did not have standing to defend the action, since it was not the entity that had drawn up and implemented the vigilance plan (Paris Court of Appeal, 18 June 2024, No 23/10583). The Suez case provides an opportunity to make a very clear clarification: if a subsidiary is cov- ered by its parent company’s vigilance plan, that subsidiary has no standing to defend the action. In that regard, the Paris Court of Appeal held that “the head of the group is the natural and unconditional debtor of the obligation to publish and implement a vigilance plan” (Paris Court of Appeal, 18 June 2024, No23/10583, p 13). Overall, the Paris Court of Appeal has made the procedural conditions for admitting a case based on the duty of vigilance more flexible than the first rulings of the Paris Judicial Court. Since the duty of vigilance is a complex, cross- disciplinary issue requiring special expertise, those decisions also illustrate the importance of
assigning these “emerging” litigation cases to specialised chambers in court. While those first clarifications have been provid- ed on the procedural side and will bring more legal certainty for decisions to come, decisions on the substantive side are also eagerly awaited. CSDDD – a promising future for the duty of vigilance at the European level France’s duty of vigilance was the starting point for European discussions. After a legislative jour- ney of more than two years, the CSDDD finally entered into force on 25 July 2024. Inspired by the 2017 Law, this regulation establishes the fea- tures of the European duty of vigilance, which requires companies to prevent, eliminate or miti- gate any actual or potential negative impact on human rights or the environment in their chain of activity. First, the CSDDD’s scope of application will be broader than that of French law. While the 2017 Law applies to French registered companies with at least 5,000 employees, the threshold for companies covered by the CSDDD will be divid- ed by five, applying to European companies of more than 1,000 employees and EUR450 million worldwide turnover (Article 2.1). The CSDDD will also apply to companies reg- istered in non-EU countries if they operate in the EU and generate more than EUR450 million net turnover in the EU (Article 2.2). This wider scope means that the CSDDD might lead to an increase in the number of cases. Second, the introduction of supervisory authori- ties is a real novelty. Appointed by member states, those supervisory authorities might lead to more litigation before courts (Article 24). These authorities will be charged to investigate
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