ENVIRONMENT – Is it enough to take out the checkbook to avoid a trial? The public interest judicial agreement (CJIP) signed on September 10 by Nestlé Waters, which will pay 2 million euros in exchange for dropping charges for controversial drilling in the Vosges and deceptive practices, is an illustration of negotiated justice in full swing in France.
CJIPs are agreements between prosecutors and defendant companies in which the companies agree to pay a fine, and possibly participate in a compliance and remediation program, in exchange for dropping charges.
In the video at the top of the article, Le HuffPost traces the origin of this procedure, inspired by American justice and voted in 2016 under François Hollande, within the Sapin 2 law “relating to transparency, the fight against corruption and the modernization of economic life”. Subject to validation by a trial judge, these CJIPs were initially reserved for economic crime but were extended to environmental justice under Emmanuel Macron in 2020.
Contacted by us, The president of the Vosges association Eau 88, Bernard Schmitt, explains why, according to him, this procedure represents a “Environmental damage washing machine” for the benefit of large companies.
“No harm to public health”
For his part, the Epinal prosecutor praised the conclusion of the “the most important CJIP on environmental matters signed to date in France”The highest fine to date, amounting to 140,000 euros, was imposed in March 2023 by the Marseille judicial court against Campbell Shipping Company Ltd for air pollution caused by one of its ships.
In terms of influence peddling, corruption or tax fraud, the record is held by Airbus, which agreed, at the beginning of 2020, to pay 2.1 billion euros to the French justice system to close an investigation into the corruption of a foreign public official.
Nestlé Waters, for its part, argues that “This agreement underlines that according to the investigations carried out, the drilling operations in the Vosges basin were regularized in 2019, that no harm to public health was to be deplored, and that the treatments previously carried out on the captured water had in no way altered the mineral composition of the marketed water”.
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