The Court of Auditors advocates this Monday to better control the respect of the commitments assumed by certain large beneficiary companies of a loan guaranteed by the State (PGE), in a report that is also praiseworthy regarding the system deployed by the Government during the crisis of health France should “implement an effective control of the commitments of large companies that benefit from PGE and clarify the consequences of their non-compliance”, thus recommend the financial magistrates.
For companies in which the State is a shareholder, “the State Participation Agency guarantees the fulfillment of the commitments”, points out the institution of rue Cambon. But “for the other companies, the organization of this follow-up is less clear”, regrets the Court. If the Fraud Repression and some banks “indicate that they have taken the initiative to control these commitments, it does not seem to be the case for all and the State has not assumed the monitoring and centralization of these controls”, he adds.
However, these commitments are important, since they come, for example, to temporarily prohibit the payment of dividends or the repurchase of shares, and oblige companies to respect the contractual term of payment to their suppliers.
“Undeniable” success
“With 12.4 days at the end of 2021 and 17.4 days for large companies”, payment terms remain in France “significantly higher than the average times observed with certain partners (7 days in Germany and 4 days in the Netherlands)”, regrets the Court. After these delays in payments, 20 sanctions have been issued against large companies in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, for a total amount of 645,300 euros.
In Germany or Italy, the commitments requested from large companies are “more numerous” and a “control process” has been defined, says the Court. On the other side of the Rhine, it is the KfW, the public bank responsible for managing the state guarantee, that controls the controls. In Italy, “the process is based on information transmitted online by banks,” the report details.
Apart from its recommendation on large companies, the Court of Auditors considers that the EMPs have achieved their objective. “The speed of the rise in charge of the device is an undeniable success, the fruit of close collaboration between public authorities and banks,” he greets in a rare compliment.
The cost of the device for the State “should be contained, at less than 3,000 million euros, while the EMPs have made it possible to support some 700,000 companies worth almost 140,000 million euros”, greet the guardians of public finances. “The participation of the so-called ‘zombie’ companies among the beneficiaries is limited to less than 2.5% of the borrowers”, the Court further rejoices.
Source: BFM TV
