Can an international legal assistance request be directly sent to the PNF?

Legal assistance requests issued by foreign judicial authorities and addressed to French judicial authorities are generally sent through diplomatic channels.

However, they can be directly sent to the PNF if one of the following three conditions is met:

• in duly substantiated emergency cases, and when the facts are in the scope of competence of the PNF (corruption, traffic of influence, misappropriation of public funds, favoritism, aggravated tax fraud, VAT offenses, money laundering or market abuse). In such a case, a copy of the request can be sent to the PNF at pr-financier.tgi-paris@justice.fr, while the request itself should be sent via diplomatic channels;
• when the request can be categorized as a European investigation decision with reference to Directive 2014/41/UE dated 3 April, 2014 (provided the facts fall within the competence of the PNF: corruption, traffic of influence, misappropriation of public funds, favoritism, aggravated tax fraud, VAT offenses, money laundering or market abuse);
• when a specific convention or a bilateral agreement between France and the requesting country allows the direct provision of a request by a judicial authority to another (provided the facts fall within the competence of the PNF).

For any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact the PNF, using the following address/e-mail/phone number:

Parvis du tribunal de Paris, 75859 PARIS Cedex 17

pr-financier.tgi-paris@justice.fr

Tel : +33 (0)1 44 32 99 76.