The directors of companies that offered training within companies were found guilty of having submitted fraudulent invoices to the OPCA (approved joint collection bodies) so that they would pay them undue amounts.
Fourteen people were sentenced in Paris on Wednesday to sentences ranging from 10 months in prison, suspended, to 30 months in prison for having defrauded joint professional training organizations between 2009 and 2014.
The directors of companies that offered training within companies were found guilty of having submitted fraudulent invoices to the OPCA (approved joint collection bodies) so that they would pay them undue amounts.
Some training courses were thus inflated (they actually had a lower number of hours or trainees), others actually covered a different subject than the title (school support instead of a language course, training in campsite management instead of office automation, etc.), according to the judgment consulted by AFP.
Three million euros in damages
The money paid was sometimes used to finance purchases (for example, computer equipment, household appliances) or to pay employees instead of financing training, according to the same source.
The 13th correctional chamber of the Paris court distinguished four groups of defendants and found almost all of them guilty of fraud with the aggravating circumstance of being part of an organized gang.
The total damage was estimated at around three million euros over the period.
The heaviest sentence – 30 months in prison and a fine of 16,000 euros – was handed down to one of the managers of a training company, the only person absent from the trial which took place in June.
An arrest warrant was issued against him, as against three other defendants sentenced to 5 years in prison, including two years firm and semi-liberty, as well as a fine of 45,000 euros.
The legislation has evolved since then
Disqualification sentences of up to 15 years were also handed down.
Three women, found guilty of having a commercial activity under the guise of being a trainer, were sentenced to 15 months in prison, suspended, and a fine of 2,000 euros.
The court stressed in particular that “the funds swindled came from compulsory deductions”. “Swindling the OPCA means stealing from all companies and therefore from employees”, declared the president Guillaume Daieff in rendering the decision.
The evolution of the legislation since 2014 is “in part” due to the fraud in this case, the judgment also underlines.
At the time, there were about twenty OPCA, which became OPCO (skills operators) in 2018. Reduced to eleven, the latter no longer collect contributions (they are transferred to Urssaf).
