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FIND OUT MOREWhat do a Louis Vuitton bag full of cash, the payment of repeated stays and business class plane tickets to Italy for the family of members of the Government, and a multimillion allowance dedicated to “the reception and support of officials” have in common?
They are all key facts of the Santullo case, where red flags of corruption recently provided the Paris Court of Appeals with the opportunity to confirm the new annulment standard for breach of international public policy, adopted two weeks ago by the Cour de Cassation.Moving from the former standard used by French courts – requiring a showing of “manifest, concrete and effective breach of international public policy”, the Cour de cassation used the arguably broader standard of “characterised breach of international public policy” in its Belokon case of 23 March 2022 (see our comment on Belokon).In line with this new standard, the 5 April 2022 decision of the Court of Appeals found that “recognition and enforcement of the award in France was likely to enable the Santullo Group to benefit from the product of fraudulent activities, which constitutes a characterised breach of international public policy”.
In its red flags analysis, the Paris Court was ill at ease to take into account the confessions of the members of government indicted for corruption which might have been provided through torture.
It appears that the Paris Court gave specific care to respect the arbitral tribunal’s own findings and based part of its factual analysis on pending criminal proceedings in Switzerland (specifically an order) which the arbitral tribunal could not have been aware of at the time of its deliberations.
The full text of the decision can be found here.
