News

Compliance has become a major challenge for all corporate functions and an essential element to secure business activities.

The stakes are high… and the financial, legal and reputational risks, often underestimated, are real.

In this context, the European American Chamber of Commerce Auvergne Rhone-Alps (EACC) has decided to create, in partnership with Soulier Bunch, a new Compliance Task Force dedicated to compliance.

On December 22, 2022, Mr. Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, Finance, Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, and Mr. Olivier Becht, Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Economic Attractiveness and French Nationals Abroad, Attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, announced in a press release that the temporary measure lowering the threshold of voting rights in listed French companies that triggers foreign investment control in France will be extended until December 31, 2023.

In two rulings handed down on January 18, 2023, the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) recalled that while the judge cannot substitute him/herself for the employer in establishing and applying the criteria to determine the order of dismissals (i.e. the order in which employee(s) will be dismissed) in the context of a dismissal on economic grounds, in case of dispute on the application of said criteria, the employer must disclose to the judge the objective elements on which it relied in order to make its choice.

Open since January 1, 2023, the One-Stop Shop for business formalities (Guichet Unique in French) introduced by the 2019 Pacte Law in order to simplify administrative procedures for businesses has already raised harsh criticism and discontent as its too many malfunctions make it almost ineffective.

Legal and accounting professionals are unanimously mobilized to assist and support companies through this reform.

The use of drones, once reserved for the military, is now widespread.

In fact, drones are receiving a high level of interest from investigation services. Even more, they are now becoming indispensable security tools, as shown by the recent acquisition by the City of Toulouse of several drones to protect its inhabitants.

But can these drones be used to secure evidence in a criminal case?

The Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) ruled on this question on November 15, 2022.

Emmanuel Pierrat, member of the Paris Bar, prolific author, has published in fall 2022 an erudite book showing through the centuries the role, sometimes revolutionary sometimes reformist, of very talented lawyers, often embracing at the end a political career at the highest level.

In 336 pages published by Albin Michel, Emmanuel Pierrat showcases the most famous lawyers, their fevers, their harangues, and the societal and cultural changes that their voice has prompted in our “modern” societies.

This is the case of our founding partner, André Soulier, Dean of the Lyon Bar, to whom Emmanuel Pierrat devotes six pages (pages 269-275) of his book, under the significant title “When the lawyer precedes the law” which praises a legislative reform that followed one of the acquittals he has obtained in his career.