Nestlé Waters will pay a fine of 2 million euros, after having entered into a public interest judicial agreement (CJIP) with the Epinal prosecutor’s office, following two preliminary investigations, the Epinal prosecutor announced on Tuesday 10 September. One concerns possible illegal drilling in the water table, the other concerns prohibited treatments that Nestlé admitted to having applied to its mineral waters.
A CJIP allows for the imposition of a fine and/or the implementation of a compliance program, as well as compensation for damages. But it does not have “neither the nature nor the effects of a conviction”AND “does not imply conviction”specifies the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Nestlé Waters will have to pay this fine within three months. The subsidiary of the Swiss group Nestlé is also betting on “repair the ecological impact by implementing an ambitious plan for renaturalization and restoration of ecological continuity”.
It will also compensate several environmental protection associations with 516,800 euros, said the Epinal prosecutor, Frédéric Nahon, in a statement. This CJIP is “the most important environmental agreement signed to date in France”according to the Epinal prosecutor’s office.
“Rapid regularization” of the situation
The conclusion of this CJIP comes after two preliminary investigations. The first concerned the insufficiency of the administrative authorisations required by the regulations to allow the exploitation of nine of the 130 existing basins for the marketing of mineral waters produced by Nestlé Waters.
The second investigation concerned the multinational’s use of treatments not authorised under mineral water regulations, in this case, ultraviolet treatment and activated carbon filters.
The Epinal prosecutor’s office notes that Nestlé Waters put an end to the irregularities observed and stopped the unauthorized treatment of water and “fully cooperated” before the judicial and administrative authorities. The prosecution states that there were no consequences for public health.
“Taking into account these elements and the connection between both procedures”The Epinal prosecutor explains that he proposed the holding of a CJIP that “allows, by sanctioning the observed non-compliance, to promote the fastest regularization of the situation, the repair of the ecological impact and the compensation of various parties”.
“A malfunctioning justice system”
The associations Vosges Nature Environnement, Foodwatch and Eau 88, authors of complaints against Nestlé, were invited to quantify their damages, but they denounced the solution adopted by the CJIP. This convention would be equivalent “sweeping the matter under the carpet and allowing Nestlé Waters officials to get away with it without any explanation or consequence other than the payment of a sum of money”Foodwatch said yesterday, calling for approval to be refused.
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“The provision is a bit villainous, it allows people who have money to escape prosecution and a criminal record”Bernard Schmitt, of the Eau 88 collective, who had filed a complaint in 2020 about possible illegal drilling, told Agence France-Presse. But in the absence of a convention, “Since Nestlé has lawyers and a lot of resources, and the justice system has few resources, we will find ourselves five to ten years later with crimes that everyone will have forgotten and a ridiculous penalty… So what do we do?”. “It is a bitter pill to swallow. The tool is far from perfect, but it allows, in environmental terms, to have a faster response.”moderated by François Zind, lawyer from Eau 88.
“We demand that the convention include an impact study on the quantities of water in the aquifers and the impact” of Nestlé’s activity, he adds. Without the convention, “We would have enough for seven or eight years, as multinationals know how to do, and we no longer have that time in relation to the climate emergency and what we think is an overexploitation of the resource.”
“This is indicative of a justice system that is not functioning properly. If justice had the means to function, we should have a proper trial.”estimates Jean-François Fleck of Vosges Nature Environnement. The association has nevertheless responded to a request for an estimate of the damage.
In September 2022, Nestlé France had already signed a CJIP with the public prosecutor of Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes), following the pollution of the Aisne river in 2020, which caused the death of around six tonnes of fish. Although it denied that its factory in Challerange (Ardennes) was the cause of the pollution, despite checks by the gendarmes and the French Biodiversity Office, the multinational accepted a fine of 40,000 euros.
