Toulouse: Fraud in restaurants, convicted managers escape the ban on managing
Prosecuted for fraud between 2014 and 2018, the managers of the Toulouse restaurants “La compagnie Française”, “Ma biche sur le roof” or “Le Café chouchou” saw their sentence confirmed on appeal. They avoid imprisonment and the prohibition to manage.
“A fair decision which seems to us to make a good appreciation of the reality of the offenses committed and the efforts undertaken since to reimburse the sums due”, underlines Me Jocelyn Momasso Momasso. With Me Laurnet De Caunes, they defended themselves before the chamber of correctional appeals the managers of several trendy restaurants in Toulouse. Establishments like “La compagnie Française” or “Ma biche sur le roof” which between 2014 and 2018, thanks to permissive software installed in their cash registers, made part of the cash receipts disappear.
Launched by a surprise raid in December 2017, the checks, and the investigation carried out by customs officers and tax officials, demonstrated organized fraud with 2.5 million misappropriated in taxes (VAT, corporate taxes, income) or social benefits. An amount that the restaurateurs, who have recognized the fraud and admitted their errors, have never disputed. And that they have above all started to reimburse. “The Urssaf debt of €461,688 has already been fully paid and the tax debts are in the process of being reimbursed”, specifies Me Momasso Momasso.
The creator of the software also condemned
In its judgment delivered this Wednesday, February 9, the Toulouse correctional appeals chamber, which set aside the firm prison sentence pronounced at first instance, considered, moreover, that the prohibition to manage, which had been requested by the public prosecutor “would have disproportionate economic consequences”. This additional penalty was also set aside by the court. The defense lawyers did not fail to point out during the hearing at the end of November that the various restaurants of the All for you group employed 250 people. The three managers were given a 3-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of €50,000 each.
The creator of the permissive software, and his company, were also condemned but, there too, the sentences were revised downwards. The creator receives a one-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of €20,000, his company a fine of €100,000 – more than double that had been pronounced at first instance.