The name of the Company is: “Électricité de France”. The Company may also be legally designated by the acronym “EDF”.
The Company’s registered office is at 22-30 Avenue de Wagram in the 8th arrondissement of Paris.
The telephone number is 33(0) 1 40 42 22 22.
The Company is registered with the Paris Trade and Companies Registry under number 552 081 317. Its APE code is 401E.
EDF was incorporated pursuant to Act no. 46–628 of 8 April 1946 as a French public industrial and commercial establishment (EPIC). It was converted into a French société anonyme (public limited company) by the Act of 9 August 2004 and the Decree of 17 November 2004.
The Company was incorporated for a term of 99 years as from 19 November 2004, unless the Company is dissolved before such date or unless its term is extended.
Since 20 November 2004, EDF has been a French société anonyme with a Board of Directors. It is governed by the laws and regulations applicable to commercial companies, in particular the French Commercial Code, except in the event of specific exceptions stipulated in the French Energy Code or Order no. 2014-948 of 20 August 2014 on the governance and capital transactions of companies with State holdings and by its articles of association.
This section describes the main legal proceedings except the one covered in note 5 and 17.3 to the consolidated financial statements and any material developments in those proceedings that have occurred between the approval of the financial statements and the filing date of this document.
To the knowledge of the Company, there are no administrative, legal or arbitration proceedings (including any pending or threatened proceedings of which the Company is aware) likely to have or having had in the past 12 months a material impact on the financial situation or the profitability of the Company and/or the Group with the exception of those described below and those described in the notes to the 2020 consolidated financial statements.
France’s Competition Authority is currently investigating the EDF group in relation to four separate matters. The first, relating to the commercial practices of EDF and certain of its subsidiaries in the energy services markets, follows a complaint filed on 17 October 2016 by Xélan. Following this complaint, France’s Competition Authority conducted search and seizure operations at the premises of EDF and several of its subsidiaries on 22 and 23 November 2016. EDF and its subsidiaries lodged appeals with the Court of Appeal in Versailles challenging the search and seizure procedures.In orders issued on 12 April 2018 and 10 January 2019, the President of the Court ofAppeal in Versailles dismissed the appeals against the order authorising the search and seizure procedures and against the manner in which those were conducted. The appeal to the French Supreme Court by EDF and its subsidiaries was dismissed by a decision dated 20 January 2021. The second investigation, relating to EDF’s commercial practices in the retail energy supply markets, following a complaint filed by Engie relating, in particular, to the circumstances in which EDF gave access to customer data to electricity suppliers that requested access from the end of 2015, relating to customers supplied energy under the regulated Green and Yellow tariffs, as part of the discontinuation of these tariffs. The third legal proceeding, relating to EDF’s pricing policy for its electricity supply offers to non-residential customers with a connection capacity of less than 36kVa, follows a complaint by Plüm Energie dated 14 September 2020. This complaint is accompanied by an application for precautionary measures, regarding which the ADLC will rule at the beginning of 2021. The fourth legal proceeding follows an ex-officio referral from the ADLC dated 4 November 2019. This proceeding pertains to the formation of a partnership by a subsidiary in the field of heating network operation.
As part of an AMF investigation into financial information provided to the markets since July 2013, the AMF notified EDF of two grievances on 5 April 2019, which EDF challenged. On 28 July 2020, the AMF Commission des sanctions (EnforcementCommittee) imposed financial penalties of €5 million on EDF and €50,000 on its former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for a failure consisting in the dissemination of false or misleading information in connection with the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in a press release dated 21 October 2013 entitled “Agreement on the Commercial Terms of Contracts for the Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Plant Project”. EDF lodged an appeal against this ruling.
In contrast, the Enforcement Committee ruled out any breach of the obligation to disclose as soon as possible inside information relating to EDF’s decision to pursue the Hinkley Point C project as part of the full consolidation in the Group’s financial statements, which was disclosed to the market on 21 September 2015, thereby exonerating both EDF and its current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in this respect.
On 1 December 2016, the CRE (French Energy Regulation Commission) launched an investigation into whether EDF and its subsidiaries EDF Trading Limited and EDFT Markets Limited were guilty of engaging, since 1 April 2016, in practices that could constitute breaches of the provisions of regulation (EU) no. 1227/2011 of 25 October 2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT). The CRE informed EDF by letter dated 5 July 2018 that it had referred the matter to the Settlement of Disputes and Sanctions Committee (CoRDiS). There is no indication as to the outcome of the proceedings.
The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has opened an investigation into the availability of the Sloe power plant (gas-fired combined cycle power plant based in the Netherlands). On 19 November 2020, EDF and EDF Trading Limited received a notification of ACM’s grievances. There is no indication as to the outcome of the proceedings.
A certain number of authorisations and permits related to the Group’s generation plants (ASN (Nuclear Safety Authority), decisions by the Prefecture, decrees, orders, etc.) have been challenged before the courts, mainly by environmental associations.
