{"id":11245,"date":"2022-03-29T10:06:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T10:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alerionavocats.com\/?p=11245"},"modified":"2022-03-29T10:06:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T10:06:05","slug":"strengthening-of-the-french-blocking-statute-the-french-governments-one-stop-shop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alerionavocats.com\/en\/strengthening-of-the-french-blocking-statute-the-french-governments-one-stop-shop\/","title":{"rendered":"Strengthening of the French Blocking Statute : The French Government\u2019s one-stop shop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As of April 1, 2022 (1), the French Strategic Intelligence and Economic Security Service (\u201cSISSE\u201d) will assist French companies receiving discovery demands or requests from foreign authorities to disclose sensitive and strategic information, strengthening the 1968 French Blocking Statute (the \u201cBlocking Statute\u201d) (2).<\/p>\n<p>The SISSE \u2013 as a centralized department \u2013 will assist French companies to identify sensitive economic, commercial, industrial, financial, or technical information and will specify whether the information may be transmitted.<\/p>\n<p>The targeted companies must inform the SISSE about any request from foreign public authorities or from any person acting on their behalf.<br \/>\nFrench companies will have to submit a file to the SISSE (using secure means), including an organizational chart identifying the natural or legal persons controlling the company, a description of its activities, a list of its main French and foreign competitors and the reasons for the applicant\u2019s demand (3).<\/p>\n<p>The SISSE will issue an opinion, together with relevant French authorities (department of Justice, department of Foreign Affairs, Anti-corruption Agency, Financial Markets Authority, etc.), within one month, on the applicability of the Blocking Statute\u2019s provisions.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong>***<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The French Blocking Statute: a shield against extraterritorial foreign laws<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Blocking Statute prohibits the disclosure of sensitive economic, commercial, industrial, financial, or technical information by French natural and legal persons to foreign authorities  or its use in foreign judicial or administrative proceedings (5), issued outside the framework of international mutual legal assistance schemes (6). A breach of those prohibitions is punishable by up to six months\u2019 imprisonment and a EUR 18,000 fine (7).<\/p>\n<p>French courts have only enforced this prohibition once, resulting in a EUR 10,000 fine (8). As a result, foreign authorities \u2013 mainly American courts \u2013 consider that the statute is not a valid reason to not comply with discovery or pre-discovery requirements (9).<\/p>\n<p>The SISSE, created in 2016 and attached to the Directorate General for Enterprise (department of Economy), oversees France\u2019s economic security policy. It coordinates the protection from foreign threats of technologies and companies. The SISSE works closely with other ministries, services (including intelligence agencies) and independent authorities to unify the national response.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with increasing demands, mainly from the US (such as Alstom (2014), Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale (2018) or Airbus (2020) cases), French companies were asking for a real &#8220;weaponization&#8221; of the legislation &#8211; beyond the role attributed to the Anti-corruption Agency by the Sapin II Statute &#8211; to protect themselves from extraterritorial procedures such as e-discovery, Cloud Act and other subpoenas. It remains to be seen how this regulation will be considered by foreign authorities.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>For any additional information, please contact the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.alerionavocats.com\/en\/expertise\/compliance-and-regulatory\/\">Compliance and Regulatory team.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.alerionavocats.com\/avocat\/frederic-saffroy\/\">Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Saffroy<\/a><\/strong>, Partner &#038; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.alerionavocats.com\/en\/avocat\/alice-bastien\/\">Alice Bastien<\/a><\/strong>, Associate.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>(1) Decree n\u00b0 2022-207 of February 18, 2022.<\/p>\n<p>(2) Statute n\u00b0 68-678 of July 26, 1968, modified by the Statute n\u00b080-538 of July 16, 1980.<\/p>\n<p>(3) Order of March 7, 2022, published in the French Official Gazette.<\/p>\n<p>(4) Article 1 of the Blocking Statute.<\/p>\n<p>(5) Article 1 bis of the Blocking Statute.<\/p>\n<p>(6) For example, the Hague Convention of March 18, 1970, on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters.<\/p>\n<p>(7) Article 3 of the Blocking Statute.<\/p>\n<p>(8) Criminal chamber, <em>Cour de cassation<\/em>, n\u00b0 07-83.227, December 12, 2007, in the \u201cExecutive Life\u201d case.<\/p>\n<p>(9) Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale Industrielle A\u00e9rospatiale v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, 482 U.S. 522 (1987).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As of April 1, 2022 (1), the French Strategic Intelligence and Economic Security Service (\u201cSISSE\u201d) will assist French companies receiving discovery demands or requests from foreign authorities to disclose sensitive and strategic information, strengthening the 1968 French Blocking Statute (the \u201cBlocking Statute\u201d) (2). The SISSE \u2013 as a centralized department \u2013 will assist French companies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actualite"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Strengthening of the French Blocking Statute : The French Government\u2019s one-stop shop - Alerion Avocats Paris<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alerionavocats.com\/en\/strengthening-of-the-french-blocking-statute-the-french-governments-one-stop-shop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strengthening of the French Blocking Statute : The French Government\u2019s one-stop shop - Alerion Avocats Paris\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As of April 1, 2022 (1), the French Strategic Intelligence and Economic Security Service (\u201cSISSE\u201d) will assist French companies receiving discovery demands or requests from foreign authorities to disclose sensitive and strategic information, strengthening the 1968 French Blocking Statute (the \u201cBlocking Statute\u201d) (2). 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