News & analyses
Decisions, reforms and practical insights in criminal law, commented by the firm.
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Press offences
Freedom of expression and the offences that sanction its abuses (insult, defamation, incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence) give rise to important case law, built piece by piece, since the field is shaped by the facts of each case.
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Criminal liability and legal persons
Criminal liability of legal persons gives rise to abundant case law on the basis of Article 121-2 of the Criminal Code. A legal person can only be criminally liable for offences committed on its behalf by its organs or representatives.
Read the full analysisOffences against honour
The offence of slanderous denunciation gives rise to relatively limited case law, but the Criminal Chamber has nonetheless clarified its conditions in recent decisions.
Read the full analysisFair-trial guarantees
Many decisions of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation invoke Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and, to a lesser extent, the preliminary article of the Code of Criminal Procedure, both of which set out the main fair-trial guarantees.
Read the full analysisProcedural nullities
Nullities are very frequently the sanction for the unlawfulness of a procedural act, and more rarely the sanction for a judge's excess of power.
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Money laundering
Set out at Article 324-1 of the Criminal Code, money laundering has the particularity of being a consequence offence: it is only possible to launder the direct or indirect proceeds of a crime or offence. Money laundering presupposes the existence of a prior offence.
Read the full analysisCriminal conspiracy and the non bis in idem principle
Criminal conspiracy, defined at Article 450-1 of the Criminal Code, regularly raises the question of its accumulation with other offences in light of the non bis in idem principle, which the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation interprets restrictively.
Read the full analysisVictims' rights in criminal proceedings
The Criminal Chamber regularly rules on victims' rights (the right to join the proceedings as a civil party, the right to obtain compensation for the loss suffered) and on the rights of the person under investigation (rights of the defence, right to private life).
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