The owner of the Atalian group, Franck Julien, was sentenced on Tuesday, July 2, to four years in prison, including eighteen months in prison, and a fine of 375,000 euros. The Paris Criminal Court found him guilty of several “misuse of corporate assets”, “aggravated money laundering”, “complicity in forgery and use of forgery”. The former CEO of this giant of business services (cleaning, security, green spaces, etc.), with 67,000 employees and a turnover of 2 billion euros, was also banned from managing a company for three years. His real estate assets in Belgium and Paris will be confiscated.
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The 57-year-old businessman, whose fortune is estimated at 550 million euros by the weekly, was accused of Challengesto have set up an elaborate system of “predation of property” Atalian for his personal benefit, according to the referral order of the judges who investigated the case, including The world echoed at the opening of the trial in January. The magistrates had documented in particular practices of overcharging by the group’s service providers which allowed cash payments, the carrying out of work in Franck Julien’s various homes with the company’s money or the undue purchase of a prestigious property in Brussels, for the latter’s use.
The president of the criminal court considered that the facts of misuse of corporate assets were ” many ” and had been committed “with the aim of personal enrichment.” He estimated them at 17 million euros between 2008 and 2017, compared to 36 to 37 million euros for the investigating judges. Sums that remain “considerable” for the president of the court, for whom this behavior is “contrary to the probity expected of a business leader”During the trial, the public prosecutor requested a five-year prison sentence for Franck Julien, three of which were firm, and a fine of 1 million euros.
2 million euros in cash in the safe
At the start of the hearing, the former boss of Atalian, who was once the owner of the economic newspaper The gallery, had sketched a mea culpa on this system of embezzlement, while denying being the originator and refuting any personal enrichment. He had explained that the cash obtained through the overcharging had been used to finance internal events within the company aimed at celebrating “big commercial successes”. A line of defense that did not convince.
In this complex and complex case, Franck Julien was not the only one to be judged. Thirteen other defendants accompanied him, including Atalian executives. Three people were acquitted. The others were sentenced to fines and sometimes to prison terms of up to three years, two of which were suspended with probation.
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