Former Ikea France executives in court to challenge spying convictions

The former boss and other executives of furniture retailer Ikea France will appear in a Paris appeals court on Wednesday to contest sentences handed down in 2021. They were found guilty of fraudulently collecting data and spying on employees between 2009 and 2012.

Ikea France – a subsidiary of the Swedish furniture-maker - was sentenced to a one million euro fine for having spied on hundreds of employees for several years.

The company has chosen not to contest the decision and will not be represented at the Paris appeal which is due to last until 30 September.

After two weeks of sometimes heated debates in March 2021, the Versailles Criminal Court obliged the French subsidiary to compensate the majority of the approximately 120 civil laintifs, including employees and trade unions, awarding damages between 1,000 and 10,000 euros.

“Only three or four civil plaintifs have appealed, meaning that 95 percent of them declared themselves legally satisfied with these indemnities,” the lawyer for Ikea France, Emmanuel Daoud told AFP.

The issue in the original trial was the protection of the private lives of ordinary workers, according to state prosecutor Pamela Tabardel, who accused the company and one of its former chief executives, Jean-Louis Baillot, of "mass surveillance".

Time for explanation

The public prosecutor had requested a fine of two million euros against Ikea France as well as calling for Baillot to serve a prison sentence.

Baillot was finally given a two-year suspended sentence and a fine of 50,000 euros. He has appealed the decision which found him guilty in particular of "concealment of collection of personal data by fraudulent means," for acts allegedly committed between 2009 and 2012.

"He is a deeply hurt man," who will want "to explain to the court the way in which he directed Ikea for more than twenty years without ever ordering anything illegal", his lawyer, François Saint-Pierre, told the AFP news agency.

Like the former CEO, other executives have appealed, in particular the administrative and financial director at the time, Dariusz Rychert, as well as the former deputy director Sylvie Weber, both handed a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros.

In this vast case involving what was described as espionage by the press and investigated from 2012, Ikea France and its leaders at the time were accused of having illegally inquired about the criminal records, the lifestyle or assets of certain employees via consulting company Eirpace, which would have drawn this confidential data from police files.

(with newswires)