It took only nine years, but French Supreme Court La Cour de Cassation has found cosmetics behemoth L'Oreal and hiring firm Adecco guilty of racial discrimination.

The case dates back to 2000, when L'Oreal was recruiting sales folk to push its Fructis Style haircare product line. Brand Republic reports that "one of the requisites was that staff should be 'BBR', an acronym for the colours of the French flag and widely used to signify someone who is white and of French descent. It also wanted the women sized between 8 and 12."

L'Oreal and Adecco were fined $41,500 each for their misdeeds and ordered to pay the same amount to anti-racist group SOS Racisme, who initially brought the case to the French Supremes. Still, it seems that nearly a decade later, the brand has been none the wiser as it allegedly whitened Beyonce's skin for an ad and was rejected by its own brand ambassador, Bollywood starlet Aishwarya Rai, with its request to appear in a similar campaign.

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