French Cinema and Moving Image Code
In forceThe Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée may, within three years of the date of issue of the cinematographic exhibition licence, audit the production account referred to in article L. 213-24 or have it audited by an independent expert. The purpose of this audit is to check the regularity and accuracy of the account.
The line producer must provide the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée or the independent expert with all the documents and records required to carry out the audit.
The Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée sends the draft audit report to the line producer who presents his observations. The final audit report is sent to the line producer, the other co-producers, the companies with which the line producer has signed a financing contract giving them a share of the box office receipts and the authors listed in article L. 113-7 of the French Intellectual Property Code and, where applicable, to publishers who are transferees of the audiovisual adaptation rights of a printed work, provided that the delegate producer has signed a contract with these authors or publishers giving them a share in the box office receipts of the work, subject to amortisation of the production cost.
The Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée will also send the final audit report to any other natural or legal person with whom the line producer has signed a contract giving them a share of the revenue from the exploitation of the work, subject to the amortisation of production costs. When there is a collective agreement or a specific agreement made compulsory on the basis of article L. 212-8 of the same code providing, for the benefit of performers, a remuneration conditional on the amortisation of the production cost of the work, the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée sends the final audit report to them or to an organisation for the collective management of performers' rights mentioned in title II of book III of part one of the said code designated for this purpose. When a profit share in the exploitation revenues of the work is determined on the basis of the depreciation of certain elements of the production cost, the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée sends the information relating to these elements and to the production cost to the beneficiary of the profit share.
Where the audit report reveals the existence of a false declaration for the purposes of receiving financial aid for production from the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, the latter may withdraw the aid awarded after the beneficiary has been given the opportunity to comment. Furthermore, when the audit report reveals a breach of the provisions of article L. 421-1 of this code, this is recorded and penalised in accordance with the conditions set out in Book IV. When the audit report reveals an irregularity relating to the expenditure used to calculate the tax credit for expenditure on delegated production of cinematographic or audiovisual works provided for in article 220 sexies of the General Tax Code, the Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée sends this report to the tax authorities.
