A report by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) shows that French legislation restricts prosecutors in investigating international corruption cases. The report, which the EU Observer writes was published on March 12 and approved by the French government, states that “France has severely restricted its jurisdiction and its ability to prosecute cases with an international dimension, which, given the country’s importance in the international economy and the scale of many of its companies, is very regrettable.”
The report concludes that under French law, prosecutors have no jurisdiction to prosecute foreign companies that have bribed French public officials abroad. GRECO states that “this provision makes it very difficult to prosecute acts of complicity that also include, for example, the instigation by the parent company in France of a corruption offence committed by a local branch abroad.”
