Just condemned, Darty Fnac disputes. The group was inflicted from 3.9 million euros earlier this week for the repression of fraud due to “delays in the payment of invoices of their suppliers”, but the group said Wednesday that “dispute” these decisions “before the competent courts.” In detail, it is both “Fnac Darty Participations et Services” and “Darty & Son”, which were sanctioned by the General Directorate of Competition, Consumption and Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF), each for the same reason and a similar amount of 1.95 million euros.
Fnac Darty states that the controls that led to the sanctions date back to the time of the Cavid-19 Pandemia: “An exceptional context that does not seem to have been completely taken into account,” deplores the group in a transmitted reaction, remembering the “strong disorganization” that had marked this period. The group also questions the amount of fines imposed by the DGCCRF, citing several examples of reduced sanctions before the administrative courts after taking into account the context and the disturbances caused by the Pandemia of the COVID-19.
Mass delays
Recurrent problem, delays in payment between companies are responsible for an administrative fine of a maximum amount of 2 million euros. In 2024, these delays deteriorated “significantly in France” and returned “above the European average,” said the banker of France in early July, with an average delay of 13.6 days last year.
Faced with what sometimes constitutes substantial holes in the cash of certain SMEs, the executive considers insufficiently dissuasive. In mid -July, Prime Minister François Bayrou has announced that he wanted to adjust the sanctions imposing on the companies that take time to resolve their commercial partners a financial punishment that can be “up to 1% of the billing”, to “end the practices that weaken our economic fabric.” According to him, it is “one of the fundamental problems facing companies and in particular SMEs.” The company’s mediators and credit had also spoken at the beginning of the year in favor of such a measure.
Source: BFM TV
