French Intellectual Property Code
In forceThe Enforcement Committee may hear any rapporteur or member of staff of the Control Board.
No sanction may be imposed unless the legal representative of the organisation in question has been heard or, failing this, duly summoned.
II -The Enforcement Board shall issue a reasoned decision.
On the basis of the investigation report submitted by the inspection college and after an adversarial procedure, it may impose one or more sanctions on the management organisation that fails to comply with the provisions of this title.
III.-The penalties applicable to the organisation in question are :
1° A warning;
2° An injunction, possibly accompanied by a fine, to adopt, within a specified period, one or more decisions enabling the organisation to comply with legislative or regulatory provisions;
3° Withdrawal of approval, where the organisation is approved by the Minister responsible for culture pursuant to the provisions of this Code;
4° A financial penalty, the amount of which, which may not exceed 3% of the organisation's turnover or revenue excluding tax, subject to a maximum of €300,000, is set according to the seriousness of the breaches committed and in relation to any advantages or profits derived from these breaches; this maximum is increased to 5%, up to a limit of €500,000, in the event of a further breach of the same obligation within five years of the year in which the first breach of the obligation was penalised;
5° Publication of the penalty, specifying the identity of the organisation in question and the nature of the breach, in a newspaper with national circulation.
The Enforcement Board will automatically impose a provisional or definitive fine. The total amount of the penalty payment may not exceed the ceiling set in section d for financial penalties. The sums are paid into the Commission's budget
Penalties and financial penalties are recovered in the same way as government debts other than taxes and duties.
