A large check to avoid criminal prosecution for tax evasion.
McDonald's France has agreed to pay more than one billion euros to the French state, which would allow the fast food giant to escape prosecution after a preliminary investigation started in 2016. This fine, proposed by the prosecution national financier (PNF) within the framework of a judicial Convention of public interest (Cjip), must receive the approval of a judge of the seat Thursday morning, we learned this Wednesday from concordant sources, partially confirming a information from Capital and Liberation.
Asked by AFP, neither the PNF nor McDonald's commented on this information.
French justice suspects McDonald's, in the crosshairs of the French tax authorities since 2014, of having artificially reduced its profits in France by means of royalties paid to its European parent company based in Luxembourg.
A preliminary investigation had been opened in early 2016 by the PNF, after the filing of a complaint by union officials against McDonald's France for "laundering tax evasion in an organized gang".
“Colossal” fine
The fine mentioned is "colossal", welcomed the former anti-corruption magistrate Eva Joly, who became a lawyer for these complainants, with her daughter Caroline Joly.
The two lawyers have indicated their hope that the Cjip will be approved on Thursday, "a makeshift" acceptable in view of "the state of congestion of French justice".
“The size of the fine is dissuasive” and risks “changing the practices of large groups” in terms of transfer pricing, also welcomed Eva and Caroline Joly, reached by telephone.
The CGT McDonald's Paris and Île-de-France hailed a "historic victory" in a press release.
The system in question makes employees “double victims”, they however noted: “As workers, we cannot reap the fruits of our work;
as citizens, we check out to pay the tax that McDonald's doesn't pay.
Their lawyers clarified that the employees could act "within the framework of the civil courts" to obtain compensation for their damage.
In September 2018, the EU deemed the advantageous tax treatment granted by Luxembourg to McDonald's legal, thus sparing the king of the Big Mac, unlike other American giants, such as Apple, condemned to reimburse unpaid taxes.
McDonald's France had been the subject of a search in May 2016 at its headquarters by investigators from the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (Oclciff).
Several former senior leaders of the group had been placed in police custody in early 2021.
