As the global leader in governance, risk and compliance, NAVEX is delighted to present this definitive guide to compliance in France.
Our team helps more than 13,000 businesses around the world manage and mitigate risk with confidence. We see daily the critical role that compliance programs must play in both ensuring compliance with regulations and cultivating an ethical culture. Whistleblowing is a key element of these efforts.
In an ever-changing regulatory landscape, compliance professionals in France have a lot to do. Whether the focus is on data privacy under the GDPR, on the requirements of the Duty of Vigilance Act to implement plans to prevent human rights violations or on the new obligations in Under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), companies must closely monitor regulatory changes and demonstrate a commitment to transparency.
New rules set out in the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the EU AI Law will establish new legal frameworks around supply chains and emerging technologies, putting the There is an emphasis on whistleblowing incorporated into these as a means of identifying wrongdoing and highlighting opportunities for improvement.
Since adopting its first laws to protect whistleblowers in 2013, France has been at the forefront of the evolving European whistleblowing landscape. With the arrival of the Sapin II law in 2016, which emphasizes transparency, the fight against corruption and the modernization of economic life, French policymakers have committed to providing comprehensive protections to those who are ready to blow the whistle on corporate wrongdoing, putting whistleblowers at the center of efforts to strengthen the compliance landscape.
In February 2022, France became the ninth country to transpose the European directive on the protection of whistleblowers into national law. This made it possible to align French protections with the European standard and to go further in many respects to ensure a solid framework.
Since then, we have seen a multitude of legislative developments that include additional protection mechanisms, whether in competition law, data protection or financial services regulation.
In France, the Defender of Rights plays a unique role in helping whistleblowers raise the alarm in a complex landscape, coordinating the network of approximately 41 regulatory bodies that have mandates to receive and process reports of whistleblowers. Such a united approach is found nowhere else and once again distinguishes the French authorities.
We hope that the information detailed in this comprehensive guide to compliance in France will be useful to you.
