Yves Rocher is a worldwide cosmetics and beauty brand, founded in 1959 by the French entrepreneur Yves Rocher in La Gacilly. The company is present in 88 countries on five continents and employs 13,500 personnel, excluding more than 215,000 through additional indirect jobs. The Yves Rocher group achieved a turnover of 2.5 billion euros in 2017. The group also manages the brands Daniel Jouvance, Dr Pierre Ricaud, Isabel Derroisné, Petit Bateau, Kiotis, Stanhome and Galérie Noémie. The company maintains a botanical garden, the Jardin botanique Yves Rocher de La Gacilly, at its industrial site in La Gacilly. It is open to the public without charge. Headquarters is located in Rennes.
Foundation
The Yves Rocher Foundation was founded in 2016 by Yves Rocher under the aegis of the institute of France since 2001.
Controversy
Yves Rocher Vostok, the company's East European subsidiary, sued Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his brother for fraud and money laundering. New Gazette accused Bruno Leproux, managing director of Yves Rocher Vostok, of assisting the Russian government's campaign against Alexei Navalny. Since August 2014 the "One Question for Yves Rocher" movement has been expanding in Europe in order to get the Yves Rocher corporation to take a definitive position on the case against Navalny. On 30 December 2014, Alexei Navalny's brother Oleg was sentenced to 3 years forced labour and Alexei Navalny himself to a suspended sentence of 3 years. On 17 October 2017, European Court of Human Rights decided that the case of fraud against Alexei and Oleg Navalny on the complaint of the company "Yves Rocher" was considered in Russia with violation of the right to a fair trial. The court concluded that the verdict was arbitrary and unreasonable. According to the decision of the ECHR, Russia must pay the brothers Navalny 76 thousand euros. The ECHR refused to consider the issue of political motivation. At the same time, three judges of the ECHR - Dmitry Dedov, Helen Keller and Georgios Sergidez - expressed the opinion that it was necessary to consider a possible political background of the case. Despite the decision of the ECHR on 25 April 2018, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Russia refused to revoke the verdict to the Navalny brothers in the case of Yves Rocher and decided to resume the case to consider new circumstances.
