There will be no admission of guilt. The Paris court on Friday validated an agreement reached with the LVMH group, which agreed to pay 10 million euros to avoid prosecution in the investigation into a spy system in which the former boss of the internal intelligence Bernard Squarcini.
The luxury group has accepted the judicial agreement of public interest (Cjip) proposed by the Paris prosecutor’s office and approved this Friday by a judge during a hearing at the Paris judicial court. The vice-president, Caroline Viguier, explained that she took particular account of the“Age of the facts” and “Degree of cooperation of the legal person and the means implemented to avoid repeating the facts”. This agreement was concluded after an investigation has been interested since 2011 in the links of the former head of internal intelligence Bernard Squarcini with the private sector and in particular with LVMH.
“A blank check for all future cases of infiltration of multinationals”
This judicial information with drawers was widened in October 2019 after a complaint with constitution of civil party of François Ruffin and the newspaper Fakir. François Ruffin denounced the “Surveillance” of which he would have been the subject “For nearly three years” by Bernard Squarcini at the request of LVMH, during the filming of Thanks boss !, satirical film on the world leader in luxury, awarded in 2017 the César for best documentary.
During the validation hearing, the deputy for the Somme had called the judge to “refuse” this agreement, stressing that the fine represented only “0.02% of LVMH’s annual turnover ” (44.6 billion in 2020 with brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy, Guerlain, Hennessy or Sephora). “Can justice be bought and cheaply?” The answer is yes”, reacted François Ruffin at the end of the hearing. “It is a blank check for all future cases of infiltration of multinationals. It was enough for LVMH to pay to be withdrawn from the procedure ”, he said.
“The main sponsor of this affair is going out the back door”, regretted Me Alexandre Merdassi who represented François Ruffin and the Fakir association, also a civil party, during the hearing. He estimated that this check for 10 million euros did not represent “nothing” for LVMH and had “No dissuasive interest”.