2023-04-30 12:58:53
Published on :
The procedure was opened by the French national financial prosecutor’s office in 2020 but the information, revealed by the newspaper The echoes and the magazine Challenges was confirmed this weekend by a judicial source. The amount of the damage would rise each year between 80 and 100 million euros, or 2% to 3% of the turnover achieved in Russia by the retail brand.
The investigations were launched after an article in the daily The echoes in 2020 which revealed a system of corruption in the Russian subsidiary of the group owned by the Mulliez family. According to a lawyer who worked for the subsidiary and quoted in this article, five fraud networks are at work via purchasing managers who organize rigged calls for tenders, but also artificial price increases, which translates by over-invoicing of products. Favors for the promotion of products and other irregularities in the quality department and financial control were also reportedly identified.
According to the magazine Challenges, searches were carried out in 2020 and the Anti-Corruption Office (Oclciff), in charge of the investigations, has heard employees and former executives of Auchan Russia since the beginning of the year. Among those heard as witnesses are the group’s general secretary, its international security director and the former security director of the Russian subsidiary. But Auchan claims to be a victim in this case and reserves the possibility of becoming a civil party in a case that the brand describes as exclusively Russian.
Auchan, which makes more than 10% of its sales in Russia, is one of the few French groups that have chosen to continue their activities in the country since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
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