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French payments litigation/enforcement centres on (i) ACPR Sanctions Committee disciplinary proceedings (historically AML/CFT-led, against banks such as Société Générale, BNP Paribas, La Banque Postale) appealable to the Conseil d'État; (ii) Cour de cassation case law on fraud reimbursement, increasingly protective of payers and introducing an 'intention to pay' concept in spoofing/APP scenarios. The ACPR confirmed (March 2025) that administrative financial penalties are uninsurable under French public-order principles. ACPR/AML civil fines reach EUR 100m or 10% of turnover.
A material risk-management development came on 18 March 2025, when the ACPR confirmed that financial penalties imposed by administrative authorities are uninsurable under French law on public-order grounds, warning that insurance clauses purporting to cover such penalties risk being declared null and void by French courts. This removes insurance as a backstop for ACPR fines — a direct consideration for French PSPs' governance and capital planning.
Outlook
The litigation posture is stable, anchored by the ACPR Sanctions Committee/Conseil d'État route and the uninsurability-of-fines position, alongside converging fraud-reimbursement case law tracked under W10.
Legal & Litigation
The Conseil d'Etat issued a decision on 15 July 2026 (n°509579, Cloudflare) examining the proportionality of technical-blocking measures imposed against online services. While the underlying dispute did not arise in the payments context, the ruling establishes a proportionality-assessment framework that may carry analogical relevance to future disputes over platform- or payment-blocking obligations imposed on payment-adjacent services operating in France.
The potential relevance to payments arises because technical-blocking measures, of the kind examined in the Cloudflare decision, are structurally similar to blocking or access-restriction obligations that could in principle be imposed on payment-adjacent platforms operating without proper authorisation in France. A future dispute testing the proportionality of such a measure in the payments context could draw on the framework the Conseil d'Etat has now articulated, though no such payments-specific case was identified this cycle.
Outlook
Whether the Cloudflare proportionality framework is subsequently invoked in a payments- or platform-blocking dispute specific to the payments sector is the key development to monitor. No such case has yet emerged in the sources available this cycle.
Sources and findings (4)
- T1https://acpr.banque-france.fr/en/nos-missions/sanctioning-non-complianceretrieved
- T1https://acpr.banque-france.fr/en/sanctions/jurisprudenceretrieved
- T3https://www.hsfkramer.com/notes/fsrandcorpcrime/2026-posts/the-new-eu-payments-rulebook-psd3-psrretrieved
- T3https://www.cliffordchance.com/insights/resources/blogs/talking-tech/en/articles/2025/03/insurance-is-not-a-safety-net-for-administrative-sanctions.htmlretrieved