EDF, its former CEO Henri Proglio and 15 other protagonists will be judged in Paris in spring 2024: the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) summoned them to appear for suspicion of favoritism around consultant contracts between 2010 and 2016.
The French electricity giant, its boss from 2009 to 2014 and its former secretary general Alain Tchernonog, will be judged over 14 days, between May 21 and June 13, 2024, for favoritism, AFP learned on Wednesday from a judicial source .
Fourteen natural or legal persons, EDF consultants in the early 2010s, will appear on trial for concealment of favoritism, according to this source. Among them are the former boss of public companies Loïk Le Floch-Prigent and the criminologist Alain Bauer, according to her. The former minister Claude Allègre and the former secretary of state Jeannette Bougrab, also cited in the file, are not, however, the subject of prosecution.
Investigation opened in 2016
The investigation was opened in September 2016 following a report from the Court of Auditors on a specific procedure which “could lead to the negotiation of consultancy contracts over the counter without competitive bidding”, according to a note from summary of the PNF dated February 2022 and consulted by AFP.
None of the exceptions to calls for tender provided for by French and Community law could apply to these contracts concluded with consultants.
“Chernonog” procedure
With this so-called Tchernonog procedure, named after the former general secretary of EDF, the company “explained its needs” in the contracts “and justified the choice of the consultant by a brief presentation of the skills and specificity of the service provider”, was -he specified in the note.
“The missions were precisely listed in order to establish a correlation between the skills of the consultant and the mission” entrusted, noted the document. The amounts of the missions ranged from 40,000 euros to four million euros. Most amount to several hundred thousand euros.
Picture 7 doomed
At the end of the investigation, the PNF identified a total of 44 consultants with very varied areas of expertise who had concluded such contracts, according to the judicial source.
For around thirty of them, “having benefited from contracts below the formalized procedure threshold (around 400,000 euros over the material period)”, the PNF did not order prosecutions but a dismissal, the source specified. judicial.
Since the beginning of 2023, three of these consultants, including the communications company Image 7 of Anne Méaux and Stéphane Fouks, founder of Havas, have been sentenced in Paris to fines, as part of prior admission of guilt procedures (CRPC) .
The excuse of ignorance
Jean-Marie Messier’s company, Messier Maris Associés, saw its CRPC rejected by a judge at a hearing in March.
The magistrate considered that the proposed penalty, a fine of 280,000 euros, was not “suitable and appropriate given the seriousness of the offense”, relating to two contracts in 2011 and 2012 for 1.425 million euros. “It’s quite incomprehensible” to have “totally freed oneself from the rules”, she criticized.
During the CRPC hearings, the PNF nevertheless emphasized that the consultants had carried out the services provided for in the contracts.
Some took refuge behind their lack of knowledge of public orders, the PNF believing on the contrary “that they could not ignore that no competition was organized and that they had been selected” only for “their experience and their notoriety “.
EDF does not comment
These consultants cited in this file, which also include journalists, lawyers and two former magistrates of the Council of State, “were on the whole recognized and even influential people”, it is underlined in the summary note.
When contacted, the EDF company indicated that it would not comment. Henri Proglio had ruled out, during his hearing, any “desire to hide or conceal anything”, advancing “the specificity and confidentiality” of the missions entrusted. His lawyer did not respond to AFP either.