Death of Alexeï Navalny: why Yves Rocher contributed to the conviction of the Russian opponent and his incarceration ?

Alexeï Navalny en décembre 2019. Archives EPA – SERGEI ILNITSKY

La société de cosmétiques française avait porté plainte contre X en 2012 pour des soupçons d’escroquerie visant l’entreprise d’Alexeï et Oleg Navalny.

The Yves Rocher group, very present in Russia, collaborated with the transport and logistics company Glavpodpiska run by the two brothers Oleg and Alexeï Navalny. The latter has just died this Friday February 16 in a penal colony.

But in 2012, while Alexeï Navalny was in the Kremlin's sights, his company was accused by the Russian authorities of having overcharged and defrauded the French group.

A complaint against X

Yves Rocher Vostok, the Russian subsidiary of the Yves Rocher group, files a complaint against X for fraud involving the company Glavpodpiska. The transport company is being sued for “not having honored contractual obligations” from a 2008 contract.

In 2014, after an internal audit, Yves Rocher indicated that there was ultimately no damage.

Conviction

But this declaration will not prevent the legal proceedings which ultimately led to the conviction of the two brothers by a Russian court in 2014.

Oleg Navalny is sentenced to three and a half years in prison and Alexei is sentenced to three and a half years in prison, but he is given a suspended sentence.

Respite lifted on his return to Russia

After his poisoning and when he returned to Russia, Alexeï Navalny was immediately arrested for violating his judicial control, imposed following his conviction in 2014.

A few days later, his suspended sentence was modified by a prison sentence of two and a half years of detention.

After the incarceration of the Russian opponent in February 2021, criticism was leveled against the Yves Rocher group. The latter spoke in a press release in which he declared that he had never filed a complaint against the Navalny brothers, nor had he made any legal request against them, and at no time."

So that he cannot leave prison at the end of this sentence, the Russian opponent is sentenced in August 2023 to an additional 19 years in prison for &ldquo ;extremism”.

The Russian opponent had taken legal action in France to “find out the truth”

As the head office of Yves Rocher is located in France, Alexeï Navalny took the matter to French justice. He and his brother had launched proceedings for slanderous denunciation against Yves Rocher. A way of demonstrating or not possible manipulation or pressure from Russian power on the cosmetics group regarding its business.

He had also confided in 2019: "I am very happy to be able to use French justice to know the truth”.< /em>
At the end of five years of proceedings, in May 2023, the Rennes Court of Appeal confirmed the dismissal of the case pronounced in 2021 in Vannes, in favor of the Yves Rocher group.