France - The legal framework of internal investigations

While they have now become a keystone of compliance and legal risk management mechanisms, especially in fields subject to stricter anti-corruption requirements, internal investigations do not rely, under French law, on any autonomous legal framework. 

Given the lack of specific legal provisions, the legal framework of internal investigations has been progressively shaped both by French case-law and several institutional and professional tools: 

• Guides published by the French anti-corruption Agency and the Financial Prosecutor’s Office (in French, “Parquet National Financier”)

• Recommendations from the French National Council of Bars (in French, “Conseil National des Barreaux”)

• Specialized academic papers

• Standards issued by professional associations

• Specific appendix in the internal regulations of the Paris Bar aiming to regulate the activity of the investigator-attorney. 

In parallel, French case-law issued by labor division courts enshrined a set of guiding principles such as the impartiality requirement, the inculpatory and exculpatory conduct of the investigation, the right to defend itself, or the loyalty in evidence gathering. 

However, this basis remains incomplete and devoid of normative unity. Persistent discrepancies, especially regarding the scope of the adversarial principle or the regime of confidentiality applicable to investigations conducted by attorneys, create structural uncertainty for companies operating in an international environment. 

In this context, a draft bill was presented on 9 December 2025. 

Starting from the premise that the lack of unified legal framework creates legal insecurity for economic operators and people involved, this draft bill intends to enshrine fundamental principles governing the conduct of internal investigations and to professionalize the practices. 

It introduces a legal definition in the French labor code according to which the mechanism of international investigations is a formal process intended to verify alleged facts, conducted through the investigation of inculpatory and exculpatory evidence and by means of proportionate measures. 

The draft bill also addresses and regulates the case in which an internal investigation is conducted concomitantly with criminal proceedings by inserting a mechanism guaranteeing procedural rights to people interviewed in the French Code of Criminal Procedure, such as prior information, assistance by an attorney and the adversarial formalization of the interviews. 

Finally, it asserts that acts and documents from an investigation conducted by an attorney are covered by confidentiality, thus bringing a normative response to one of the most sensitive issues at stake. 

This initiative is part of a larger movement of consolidation of French anti-corruption policy, at a time when the French Court of Auditors (in French, “Cour des comptes”) has recently highlighted the fragmentation and the weaknesses of the national governance in this regard. Such legislative proposal marks a significant milestone towards the transition from scattered standards to a coherent, comprehensible and secure legal framework.