Ikea France: appeal trial for former executives following spying on employees

Europe 1 with AFP 11:45 a.m., September 19, 2022

Sentenced to a fine of one million euros in 2021 for having spied on hundreds of employees for several years, Ikea France did not contest his sentence and will not be retried at the appeal trial which opens on Wednesday in Versailles, for several of its former executives.

After two weeks of sometimes heated debates in March 2021, the Versailles Criminal Court had also forced the French subsidiary of Ikea to compensate the majority of the approximately 120 civil parties, including employees and unions, with damages included. between 1,000 and 10,000 euros for each.

“Only three or four civil parties have appealed” these indemnities, told AFP the lawyer for Ikea France, Me Emmanuel Daoud, for whom this means that “95% of them declared themselves legally satisfied. ".

The issue of this trial was "the protection of our private lives", according to prosecutor Pamela Tabardel, who accused the subsidiary and one of its former CEOs, Jean-Louis Baillot, of "mass surveillance".

The public prosecutor had requested a fine of two million euros against Ikea France as well as imprisonment for Jean-Louis Baillot.

The latter, who was finally given a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 50,000 euros at first instance, had appealed the decision which found him guilty in particular of "concealment of collection of personal data by means fraudulent", for acts mostly committed around the years 2009-2012.

"He is a deeply hurt man", who will want "to explain to the court (of appeal of Versailles) the way in which he managed Ikea for more than twenty years without ever ordering anything illegal" to his director of risk management at Ikea France, his lawyer, Me François Saint-Pierre, told AFP.

"Mass Controls"

Like the former CEO, other executives have appealed, in particular the administrative and financial director at the time, Dariusz Rychert, as well as the former deputy director Sylvie Weber, both sentenced at first instance to one year in prison. suspended sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros.

In this vast case described as espionage by the press and then investigated from 2012, Ikea France and its leaders at the time were accused of having illegally inquired about the criminal records, the lifestyle or the heritage of certain employees. via a company "in business advice", Eirpace, which would have drawn this confidential data from police files.

At the heart of this system, Jean-François Paris, the director of risk management at Ikea France from 2002 to 2012, who had recognized at the helm in March 2021 "mass checks" of employees.

He was given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros and did not appeal this decision.

He had admitted to transmitting to Eirpace, directed by Jean-Pierre Fourès, lists of people "to be tested".

A former member of general intelligence, the latter was notably accused of having used the STIC (System for processing recorded offenses) through the police, who had also been tried in March 2021, alongside store managers.

Jean-Pierre Fourès, who also appealed against his conviction, will not be present at the trial but "maintains his position", his counsel, Me Marc François, told AFP, namely "having sold information to Ikea France completely legal" and not taken from police files.