FRANCE Trends and Developments Contributed by: Xavier Pernot, Pierre Linais and Ony Rajaona, Jeantet
and sanction companies that do not comply with the obligations contained in the directive (Arti- cles 24 and 25). Their decisions will be subject to appeal to the courts for a review (Articles 25.7 and 26.6). Any action brought to these authorities will not prevent companies from being held liable, since the CSDDD expressly provides that a compa- ny’s civil liability can also be raised before courts while referring the matter to supervisory authori- ties in parallel (Article 25-9). However, compa- nies can rest assured that the directive provides several safeguards. The main obligations provided for under the CSDDD are “obligations of means” and not “obligations of results”, meaning that compa- nies are not required to guarantee that adverse impacts will never occur. Instead, they will have to take the appropriate measures that can rea- sonably be expected to prevent or minimise the adverse impact under the circumstances of the specific case (Recital 19 of the CSDDD). Besides, the CSDDD specifically excludes a company’s liability if the damage was caused only by its business partners in the company’s chain of activities (Article 29-1).
The first concrete consequences for compa- nies operating in France will be seen once the CSDDD is transposed into French law, which is required by 26 July 2026 (Article 37-1). In this respect, the CSDDD will apply progressively, depending on companies’ size and worldwide turnover, as follows: • from 26 July 2027 for companies employing more than 5,000 employees and generating a worldwide turnover of EUR1.5 billion; • from 26 July 2028 for companies employing more than 3,000 employees and generating a worldwide turnover of EUR900 million; and • from 26 July 2029 for the remaining compa- nies within the scope of application of the directive (Article 37). Companies have every interest to anticipate the obligations contained in the CSDDD, as its entry into force might have a concrete impact on their management. To provide support to those companies, the CSDDD provides contractual clause models (Article 18), as well as guidelines regarding best practices on how to conduct due diligence in accordance with the obligations laid down in the directive (Article 19) and accompa- nying measures (Article 20).
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