Meeting for the first time on Thursday, 7 September 2017, the Ethics Committee was formed in March by SACEM to meet the requirements of the 2014 European Directive on Collective Management.
Following an unprecedented reform of its statutes, SACEM set up this new governance body to be responsible for the prevention and management of conflicts of interest between SACEM's directors, members of the Supervisory Board and the Chief Executive Officer.
The Ethics Committee will also receive the annual declarations of interests from the members of the Board of Directors, the Supervisory Board and the Chief Executive Officer and will ensure the smooth running of elections.
It is composed of six members. Once a year the Board of Directors and the Supervisory Board will appoint three members each from their ranks (one author, one composer, one publisher) to sit on the committee. SACEM's Honorary Presidents also sit on the board, along with an Independent Qualified Person (IQP), who is appointed for three years.
By entrusting the Chair of the Ethics Committee to Bruno Cotte, an experienced and well-known member of the judiciary, SACEM has confirmed its commitment to operating in an ethical and fully transparent way.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE ETHICS COMMITTEE 2017-2018
President: Bruno Cotte, former President of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation and former magistrate at the International Criminal Court.
Members: Arlette Kotchounian, songwriter / Jean-Marie Moreau, songwriter / Jean-Marie Salhani, publisher / Valérie Seiller-Billaud, publisher / Béatrice Thiriet, composer / Gérard Davoust, publisher / Claude Lemesle, songwriter.
Missing: Valérie Seiller-Billaud and Jean-Marie Salhani
Biography / Bruno Cotte, Independent Qualified Person, Chairman of the SACEM Ethics Committee
Bruno Cotte © Marc Chesneau
In his career, Bruno Cotte has held prominent positions within the judiciary in France and abroad. He was Director of Criminal Affairs and Pardons in the French Ministry of Justice, working alongside four Keepers of the Seals, including Robert Badinter. In the early 1990s, he was appointed Attorney General of the Versailles Court of Appeal and then Public Prosecutor of the Paris district High Court. In 1995, he became a prosecuting attorney at the French Court of Cassation (Criminal Division) and then at the beginning of 2000, President of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation.
Elected a judge of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, he presided over a six-year trial chamber in a case involving war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Bruno Cotte has also participated in the work of a large number of commissions on the study and reform of various aspects of criminal law and criminal justice and in 2014 chaired the Commission on the Revision of Penal Law.
A lover of classical music, he is a Commander of the Legion of Honour and Commander of the National Order of Merit. Since 2010 he has been a member of the Institut de France and the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. In 2016, he was appointed by the President of the Republic to the Council of the National Order of the Legion of Honour.
This leading figure of the judicial institution speaks regularly at the French National School for the Judiciary and at universities throughout France, most notably on International Criminal Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Published September 07 2017