From December 1 to 19, the Nanterre criminal court is set to hear a thorny case involving enigmatic Russian figures and the French multinational Total, against a backdrop of fraudulent international arbitration. In France, this case threatens to further undermine the reputation of this method of dispute resolution, which is particularly valued for its speed and confidentiality but is vulnerable to financial wrongdoing and corruption.

One of the biggest arbitration scandals to have occurred in France remains, in the collective memory, the Tapie-Crédit Lyonnais affair. This was a case of fraud compounded by the embezzlement of public funds that led to the French state’s undue payment of more than €400 million to businessman Bernard Tapie in 2008. The case soon to be heard in Nanterre reveals some disturbing parallels with that affair. Both cases, in fact, involve several of the same key players and witnesses. A group of men, made up of French lawyers, international arbitrators and a court-appointed administrator, are accused of trying to extort $22.4 billion (about €16 billion) from the company Total (the predecessor of TotalEnergies) in connection with an arbitration proceeding initiated in 2009 over an old oil exploration contract in Russia.

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