“The biggest Urssaf file since its creation”
: an inspector from this social security organization presented this Monday as
“exceptional”
the fraud allegedly committed by the Spanish temporary employment company Terra Fecundis, a labor provider. work for French farmers.
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Urssaf, which collects social contributions in France, claims 112 million euros in damages from Terra Fecundis, tried with three of its founders by the Marseille court since Monday. This company, according to Jean-Michel Ducassou, Urssaf inspector heard as a witness, hijacked the European rules on posted work for nearly 7,000 employees sent to hundreds of French farms between 2012 and 2015.
The European posting procedure allows companies to employ staff in another Member State without having to register in the trade register or pay social security contributions in the country where the employee is posted. Terra Fecundis paid the social contributions of workers employed in France in Spain, a country where these contributions are lower. However,
"in this file, estimated Jean-Michel Ducassou, the conditions of the secondment are not met because Terra Fecundis had a permanent activity in France and no substantial activity in Spain"
. For the years 2012 to 2015, in the Top 100 of Terra Fecundis client companies, only French companies appeared with the exception of one Spanish operation.
Terra Fecundis and its three founding leaders are tried for covert work and organized gang bargaining.
Only Juan Jose Lopez Pacheco, a 45-year-old Spaniard, appeared before the criminal court.
His brother Francisco Lopez Pacheco and Celedenio Perea Coll are represented by their lawyers.
"Heavy stakes"
This file
"carries heavy stakes in terms of financial, public order and reputation"
, recalled the president.
The three defendants face ten years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros and the company a fine of 500,000 euros.
Blue blazer with red elbows, Juan Jose Lopez Pacheco, who lived in France until the age of 13, told the story of this company which, in the eyes of its detractors, symbolizes social dumping within the 'Europe.
Son of a pizzeria owner in Noves (Bouches-du-Rhône), the two brothers and their childhood friend created Terra Fecundis in 2001, after the family moved to Murcia (Spain).
The company quickly experienced strong growth
"thanks to word of mouth among farmers"
in France, attracted by this new foreign workforce.
"After having submitted to all the controls, our first detachment concerned 17 workers"
, told Juan Jose Lopez Pacheco who, in 2016, sold his shares to his brother Fransisco, who is now the sole shareholder of Terra Fecundis.
In 2014, the Spanish interim company provided labor to 405 clients in France for a turnover of 50 million euros.
Juan Joez Lopez Pacheco says that in 2010 he received net dividends of 400,000 euros and a monthly salary of 4,500 euros.
He explained that he always surrounded himself with the opinions of the Spanish labor inspectorates in order to be in order, assuring that he himself played a role in the transcription by Spain of the European directives on the posting of employees.
Charges of bargaining
In charge of logistics in France, four other defendants are tried for complicity in concealed work and complicity in bargaining.
"A third of French employers used all year round"
the workforce provided by Terra Fecundis, employees mainly from South America, said the president.
"In an overwhelming majority, he added, the temporary workers say that they were hired to come to work in France and that they never or almost never worked in Spain"
.
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Beyond the hidden work, the company is also answerable for haggling, a for-profit loan of labor which, according to the summons to appear, would have caused several prejudices to the employees: remuneration below the legal minimum, absence of increase of overtime, infringement of unemployment rights in Spain by reducing the days worked declared to Spanish social organizations. The Confédération paysanne became a civil party at the start of the debates, joining the General Agrifood Federation CFDT, Urssaf or even Prism'Emploi, which brings together six hundred French interim companies.