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A report to the President of France is attached to the order of 6 December 2023, explaining its purpose and the content of its articles. Both the report and the order were published in the Journal officiel de la R\u00e9publique fran\u00e7aise (Official Journal of the French Republic) on 7 December 2023. EU member states are required to transpose the CSRD by 6 July 2024, and France is the first country to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Corporate sustainability reporting<\/strong> The information must be published in a separate section of the company\u2019s management report. This sustainability information is now defined in heading I of Article L232-6-3 of the French Commercial Code (in force since 1 January 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Information certification<\/strong> Scope of the obligation<\/strong> Entry into force of the obligation<\/strong> Other regulatory impacts<\/strong> As a reminder, Directive (EU) 2022\/2464 of 14 December 2022 also amended Directive 2013\/34\/EU of 26 June 2013 on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings. Article 19 of Directive 2013\/34\/EU now states that large undertakings as well as small and medium-sized enterprises (with the exception of micro-enterprises), which are public interest entities, must include in their annual report all information necessary to understand the impacts of the company on sustainability issues as well as the required data to understand how sustainability issues impact the undertaking\u2019s development, performance and position.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/span>\n\n\n Stay ahead of evolving HSE requirements across 300+ jurisdictions, with daily updates curated by our in-house legal experts.<\/p>\n\n\n
As a reminder, listed companies and large corporations must publish a statement of non-financial performance as part of their annual management report. This obligation is set out in Articles L225-102-1 and L22-10-36 of the French Commercial Code and stems from the transposition of Directive 2014\/95\/EU of 22 October 2014, known as the \u201cNFRD\u201d (non-financial reporting directive). The order respectively repeals and replaces these articles.
The order of 6 December 2023 repeals the statement of non-financial performance and now imposes a sustainability reporting obligation. Article 8 of the order specifies that the companies concerned will be required to publish sustainability information on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Article L232-6-3 III of the French Commercial Code, the sustainability information provided must be certified by an authorised auditor or an authorised independent third-party body (Article 8). Certifying bodies shall be supervised by the Haute autorit\u00e9 de l\u2019audit (H2A), which replaces the Haut conseil du commissariat aux comptes (H3C). This new H2A will have the power and means to carry out its new role, in particular (Article 14):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scope of the obligation is not yet definitive, as a decree must be published to set the thresholds required to define the organisations subject to it. The definitions of micro, small, medium-sized and large companies are now laid out in Article L230-1 of the French Commercial Code. The following criteria thresholds shall be set by decree in the coming weeks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Corporate sustainability reporting shall be mandatory in management reports relating to accounting periods (Article 33):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Articles 20 to 30 of the order of 6 December 2023 amend the provisions of various codes, in particular:<\/p>\n\n\n\nEHS regulatory compliance and monitoring \u2013 an expert solution to ensure your organization\u2019s compliance <\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n