McDonald's France is suspected of laundering tax fraud.

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/ Newscom / SIPA

Four executives and former officials of the McDonald's France group were recently questioned in police custody as part of an investigation opened in 2016 in Paris on suspicions of laundering tax fraud, we learned Monday from the anti-corruption prosecution.

These senior officials at the time of the events were heard over the past two weeks by the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption and Financial and Tax Offenses (OCLCIFF) in Nanterre, near Paris, said sources familiar with the matter. , confirming information from the

Journal du Dimanche

.

One of them is Jérôme Tafani, a former McDonald's now general manager for France of its competitor Burger King, according to one of these sources.

Eva Joly from the party

These interrogations took place five years after the launch by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) of this investigation, opened in early 2016 after the filing of a complaint of elected union officials against McDonald's France for "laundering of tax fraud by an organized gang".

This complaint was lodged by the elected officials of the McDonald's Ouest Parisien works council, comprising 16 restaurants and 900 employees, and represented by the lawyer Eva Joly, former MEP, and by her colleague Pierre Lumbroso.

Joined by AFP, the McDonald's France group affirms that the company “collaborates with the judicial authorities and continues to this day to maintain, on behalf of its shareholder, regular and technical exchanges on the complex issue of the value of royalties. brand and know-how with all the administrations and competent authorities ”.

McDonald's "declares its activities in France and pays all taxes due in accordance with the laws in force", adds the group, which stresses that it "is one of the most important contributors to corporate income tax".

A search in May 2016

At the time of the complaint, the CGT manager Gilles Bombard had detailed with AFP the conclusions of the CE expert reports: these showed "a system of financial flows between restaurants", mostly franchised, " and the parent company ”in order to obtain balance sheets with few profits,“ therefore no corporate taxes and no participation bonus for employees ”.

A search was carried out in May 2016 at the group's headquarters in Guyancourt (Yvelines), and many documents seized.

According to

Le JDD

, "a McDonald's bank account with funds of several tens of millions of euros has recently been blocked".

The delays in the procedure, according to the weekly, are linked to an investigation by the European Commission into the tax treatment granted by Luxembourg to McDonald's, whose European headquarters have since been moved to London, outside the EU.

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  • Corruption

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