In 2017, France became the first Member State of the European Union to adopt a law on the corporate duty of vigilance (Loi de Vigilance). The Law allows any person with a legitimate interest to issue a formal notice to the company that is failing to meet its obligations under the Law. If the company does not change its behaviour within three months of receiving the formal notice, parties may request injunctive relief from the competent court, potentially accompanied by a periodic penalty payment.

Moreover, in cases where the company’s non-compliance with its obligations under the Law results in damage, the Law further enables parties to file a civil liability claim (article 2). The Law has resulted in at least 16 formal notices, and some of them have been followed by summons to court and civil liability claims (See Rouas & The Duty of Vigilance Radar). This blogpost unpacks one of the most important cases based on the Law, i.e., the Friends of the Earth et al. v Total (Total Uganda) case. Recently, on 18 September 2025, Tribunal Judiciare de Paris rendered a decision, favouring the plaintiffs and moving the needle forward in the interpretation and application of the Law. The decision concerned the forced disclosure of corporate documents that are needed by the plaintiffs to build their case. Let’s start with the facts of the case.

Total’s Operations in Uganda

TotalEnergies is the lead developer of Uganda’s oil projects around Lake Albert, operating the Tilenga oil fields and holding a 62% stake in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a 1,443 km heated pipeline that will transport crude oil from Hoima in Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga for export. In partnership with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), Uganda’s Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), and Tanzania’s Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (TPDC), the $5 billion project is designed to carry about 216,000 barrels of oil per day. While the Ugandan government promotes it as a driver of economic growth and revenue, the project has faced strong criticism over environmental risks, greenhouse gas emissions, displacement, inadequate compensation of affected communities, and difficulties securing international financing due to environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns. Construction is ongoing following a 2022 Final Investment Decision, with production and exports expected later this decade.

The Timeline and the Facts of the Case Against Total

In June 2019, Friends of the Earth France, Survie, AFIEGO, CRED, Friends of the Earth Uganda and NAVODA sent Total a formal notice to revise its vigilance plan, pointing out in detail the alleged inadequacies of the plan in comprehensively and effectively addressing the human rights and environmental concerns of the project (see, the study done on the effects of Total’s operations by Les Amis de la Terre France & Survie and the press relase). As per the Law, Total was given 3 months to reply to the formal notice and meet its obligations under the Law. Total replied to the formal notice, stating that vigilance measures were being taken for the Tilenga and EACOP projects and denied any problem with its vigilance plan or its operations in Uganda. After that, the lawsuit against Total was filed under summary proceedings with the Nanterre High Court.

In 2020, the Nanterre Judiciary Court (which is a new type of court that merges the first instance and the high court) decided that the case did not fall into its jurisdiction and referred the case to the commercial court. However, in 2021, the Court of Cassation ultimately decided that the civil courts have jurisdiction to hear the matters based on the Vigilance Law (See decisions one and two). This meant that the case went back to the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris. In 2023, the Tribunal Judiciare de Paris rendered two decisions on the matter, favoring the defendant (See for a detailed analysis of these judgments). Therefore, these decisions were appealed by the plaintiffs.

The 18 September 2025 Decision

While the appeals proceedings were ongoing, during the hearing on 15 May 2025, the plaintiffs requested that Total shares certain key documents needed to establish Total’s potential liability was refused by Total. Thus, the plaintiffs had to take the matters to the court and ask the judge to compel Total to disclose these documents. On 18 September 2025, Tribunal Judiciare de Paris issued a crucial ruling ordering Total to disclose documents deemed essential evidence by the plaintiffs.

More specifically, the plaintiffs requested the disclosure or forced production of numerous documents, including the minutes of Total’s Human Rights Steering Committee, audit reports on land acquisition and resettlement, Ugandan authorities’ valuation reports, reports by subcontractors, food aid receipts, resettlement forms, and livelihood restoration reports. They argued that these documents were necessary for the court to verify the failures of the vigilance plan and the impact on the persons affected by the project. Moreover, they further argued that since Total had already produced some documents from its subsidiaries, it shows that it has effective control and should disclose the rest. Otherwise, the court should order the subsidiaries directly to produce these documents.

Total opposed the plaintiffs’ disclosure requests, arguing that the documents were neither directly nor specifically cited in its pleadings. It maintained that many of the documents in question belonged to its subsidiaries or to third parties such as Ugandan authorities, making the requests misdirected. Total further claimed that certain reports were confidential and that other requests were irrelevant to the duty of vigilance proceedings or premature, given that the plaintiffs had not yet established actual harm. Total insisted it had already disclosed the relevant materials in extract form and that further disclosure was unnecessary, adding that, if compelled, any sensitive documents should only be released in redacted form by an independent expert.

The court held that Total, as the parent company, is required to disclose documents originating from its subsidiaries, since its vigilance plan expressly covers their activities. It found the plaintiffs’ requests legitimate where Total had itself referred to or relied upon documents, such as the Ugandan Chief Government Valuer reports, the Atacama and Newplan compensation studies, the 2021 flood study, and the Human Rights Steering Committee minutes, and ordered their disclosure in full under penalty of €1,000 per day for delay. By contrast, it rejected the request for complete internal audit reports, holding that only extracts relevant to the dispute had to be considered at trial, and dismissed other requests that had already been satisfied during proceedings. The court emphasized that disclosure was necessary for an adversarial debate on whether Total’s vigilance plans were effectively implemented.

Analysis of the Decision and Conclusion

Overall, the Court has, for the first time in a case based on the Vigilance Law, specified that:

1. Claimants are entitled to request evidence directly from the parent company, without having to go through its subsidiaries.
2. The underlying documents used in external audits must be disclosed, since the auditors themselves had full access.
3. Study reports from external consultancies must be shared with claimants, where the company relies on them in its defense (See, Jehl).

Indeed, this decision is a huge victory for the victims of corporate abuse. The decision recognizes that, in most cases against the corporate giants, the documents that are needed by the plaintiffs to develop their arguments are in the possession of the companies. Naturally, companies will be reluctant to share such information with the plaintiffs. Therefore, forcing the company judicially to disclose the documents that are needed to build a case constitutes an important step in achieving corporate accountability.

Moreover, this case can also be contrasted with the Tribunal Judiciare de Paris’s La Poste decision in 2023. This decision was appealed in 2024, and the court gave its decision in 2025, in which it shed light on the legal expectations of some elements of the vigilance plan and the methodological approach companies must adopt to comply with the Law (See Pires’s analysis of the 2025 decision). However, for our purposes, the 2023 decision is important, as it gave important guidance on the interpretation of the scope of the disclosure duty within the context of the Duty of Vigilance Law.

In their case against La Poste, the plaintiffs requested the company to disclose the list of its subcontractors and suppliers with whom an established commercial relationship is maintained, by subsidiary, by department, and by geographic area, with essential indicators regarding due diligence obligations, i.e., volume of subcontracted activities, difficulty of tasks and dependence of La Poste Group on their activities. This was done in order to assess the adequacy of La Poste’s vigilance plan. La Poste opposed this request, arguing that there was no legal obligation to publish the list of suppliers or subcontractors, as such publication would be contrary to business confidentiality.

The Court, in its decision, emphasized that the Duty of Vigilance Law did not require companies to disclose information relating to their industrial or commercial strategy. The Court decided that the list of partners with an established commercial relationship would be a dynamic list, including thousands of companies, and that it was not demonstrated by the plaintiffs that the provision of such a list would be necessary for the implementation and evaluation of the vigilance plan (2023 decision, page 19). Ultimately, the Court decided that certain criteria regarding the subcontractors and suppliers, such as their sector, geographical location, structure, and size or resources, were enough, and the identification of the subcontractors and suppliers was not essential (page 20).

Therefore, from these decisions we see that the Court strikes a balance between the freedom of enterprise and their right to withhold trade secrets with the plaintiffs’ right to access information and justice. While the La Poste case drew a boundary around commercially sensitive information, limiting disclosure to general criteria about subcontractors and suppliers, the Total Uganda decision goes further by affirming that when a company relies on specific studies, audits, or valuations to defend the adequacy of its vigilance plan, those very documents must be shared in full with claimants. In other words, business confidentiality cannot be invoked to shield materials that the company itself has already put into play in litigation.

The decision further clarifies that the vigilance duty is inseparable from the parent company’s control over its subsidiaries. By holding that claimants may seek documents directly from the parent, the court prevents companies from hiding behind corporate structures to evade scrutiny. This finding significantly strengthens the procedural rights of victims of corporate abuse, ensuring that they can access the evidentiary foundation of the vigilance plans they seek to challenge.

Taken together, La Poste and Total Uganda decisions illustrate how French courts are gradually shaping the contours of the duty of vigilance. While they remain attentive to proportionality and the protection of trade secrets, they are increasingly willing to pierce corporate opacity where disclosure is indispensable to test the credibility of vigilance plans. This dual movement confirms that the law is not merely symbolic but is becoming a concrete tool in the hands of affected communities and civil society organizations.

As such, although the French government has sought to weaken or block the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive at the European level, French courts are taking the opposite path by progressively interpreting and strengthening the French Duty of Vigilance Law. The judiciary’s willingness to compel disclosure and to reinforce the accountability of parent companies shows that, even in the absence of political will, the courts can drive the law forward. In doing so, they ensure that the French Law continues to serve as a model for corporate accountability and as a foundation upon which European due diligence standards may eventually rest.