Friends of the Earth, Oxfam France and Notre affair à tous, three environmental NGOs, sued BNP Paribas, Europe’s leading bank, on Thursday for its “significant contribution” to global warming, after receiving formal notice on October 26th. “It is now official, BNP Paribas will have to answer to justice for its responsibility in the climate crisis,” the three associations write in a joint press release, accusing the bank of having companies in the oil and gas sector as clients.
As during the formal request, the angle of attack of the NGOs before the Paris judicial court is related to a possible breach of the “duty of vigilance”, a reason already used for example against TotalEnergies, but for the first time against a bank. In practice, a bailiff must appear at BNP Paribas headquarters in the morning to serve the subpoena in good and due form, said François de Cambiaire, an associate attorney at the Seattle firm and a partnership counselor.
BNP Paribas believes that “it has already done more than half”
Since 2017, the French law on the duty of vigilance requires large companies to take effective measures to prevent human rights and environmental abuses throughout their chain of activity. In a reaction sent on Wednesday, BNP Paribas said it “regrets” the “litigious path instead of the dialogue path.” “We have already done more than half of the way there,” BNP Paribas director of corporate engagement Antoine Sire commented to France Inter’s microphone, “since ten years ago we had almost only fossil fuels, today we have 55% essentially renewable low carbon energy.
The bank had already expressed its “disagreement” with these NGOs, in a letter consulted by AFP on January 26 in response to the formalization letter, which requested a response within three months. The companies “cannot replace the legislator”, then estimated the bank, which said it was “deeply in disagreement” with the interpretation made of the legislation on the duty of vigilance. A “next” answer, according to the associations.
A historic financier of the industrial sector and energy production, the French bank announced on January 24 new climate commitments by wanting to divide its financing to the oil extraction and production sector by five by 2030.
Source: BFM TV
