Company directors can be penalised for “institutional moral harassment”

Cass. Crim. 22nd January 2025, no. 22-87.145

In December 2009, a trade union lodged a complaint against a company and three of its directors for moral harassment. The defendants were accused of having implemented a company policy known as “workforce reduction”, aimed at forcing the departure of more than 22,000 employees in the space of three years.

Convicted by the Criminal Court in 2019 and then by the Paris Court of Appeal in 2022 for “institutional moral harassment” under Article L.222-33-2 of the French Criminal Code, only two of the defendants have appealed to the French Supreme Court.

In support of their appeal, the appellants invoked the principle of strict interpretation of criminal law, arguing that :

• Article L.222-33-2 of the French Criminal Code does not punish “institutional moral harassment”;
• In any event, the offence punishable by this article only applies to acts directly attributable to a natural person and directed against specific employees (and not to a company policy);

The French Supreme Court was asked whether the directors of a company could be penalised under Article L.222-33-2 of the French Criminal Code for acts of psychological harassment resulting not from their individual relations with employees, but from the company policy they had designed and implemented.

The French Supreme Court’s answer is in the affirmative: “institutional moral harassment” does indeed fall within the scope of “moral harassment in the workplace” within the meaning of this article.

It considers that :

• The legislator intended to give “moral harassment in the workplace” the broadest possible definition;
• The law does not require moral harassment to be directed at a specific person or in the context of interpersonal relations: it is sufficient for the perpetrator and victim to be part of the same work community.

The French Supreme Court has thus put an end to a long saga of case law and definitively enshrined the concept of “institutional moral harassment”.