Vade is now officially under American control.
The transition happened in two stages. The French software publisher initially fell under the wing of its German rival Hornetsecurity in March 2024. Hornetsecurity subsequently sold itself to Proofpoint. The deal was made public in May 2025, but only recently closed. Vade being part of the “package,” the two companies indeed needed the approval of the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, under France’s regime for foreign direct investment control.
Proofpoint has contractually committed, with the French government in Bercy, to comply with various conditions regarding its footprint and the employment of R&D in France; as well as to promote job growth more broadly across the country, we are told.
The total value of the acquisition amounts to $1.8 billion.
Questions unanswered at the Assembly and the Senate
The questions that Philippe Latombe and Mickaël Vallet had addressed to the Government will thus have gone unanswered.
The two lawmakers had alternately expressed concerns about the potential consequences of the acquisition for national and European sovereignty.
Philippe Latombe – a Deputy for Vendée, from the Democrats group – had asked that SISSE (the Service for Strategic Information and Security, attached to the General Directorate for Enterprises) take on the file. He wanted to know to what extent it would be possible to oppose the operation, notably by addressing the German government. He recalled the troubled history between Vade and Proofpoint. The former had, in 2019, been sued by the latter for copyright infringement and theft of industrial and trade secrets. Two years later, an American court found him guilty and imposed a fine of $13.5 million.
Mickaël Vallet (Senator for Charente-Maritime, Socialist group) feared that Vade, relied upon by numerous public operators and strategic companies, could fall under extraterritorial American jurisdiction. He asked the Government what concrete guarantees would be required to address this risk, both regarding data and infrastructure.
The Vade case mentioned in a report on the economic war
The Vade case is briefly mentioned in an information report on the economic war submitted in July by the Finance, General Economics and Budgetary Control Committee to the National Assembly. The finding: this double acquisition—first by Hornetsecurity and then by Proofpoint—“has shown how insufficient European coordination on technological sovereignty is. … In practice, Vade’s activities will now be subject to American law, with a risk of losing control over the data of European customers.”
The same report advocates strengthening the scrutiny of foreign investments in Europe. It notes that in 2024 the European Commission began revising the regulation. The objective: require all Member States to adopt a screening mechanism, harmonize national rules, and extend the scope of controls to operations initiated by an investor based in the EU but ultimately controlled by individuals or entities from a third country.
