Business Law

Business professionals will increasingly face the difficulty of identifying the court that is territorially competent to hear disputes arising from or in connection with their activities.  Even though Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of December 22, 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters provides some answers, national […]

By a decision dated February 12, 2013, the Commercial Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) provided an interesting illustration of a state of economic dependence that is defined as the impossibility, for a company, to benefit from a solution that would be technically and economically equivalent to the terms of the contractual […]

Asked to issue a preliminary ruling on the scope of application of the so-called de minimis Notice of the European Commission, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) has recently held that a national competition authority could apply Article 81(1) of the Treaty establishing the European Community (“TEC”) to an agreement that does not […]

Pursuant to Article L.134-14 of the French Commercial Code (hereinafter the “FCC”), a non-compete clause set forth in a commercial agency contract must, to be valid, cover a period not exceeding two years, and be limited to (i) the geographic areas and, as the case may be, the clientele, entrusted to the agent and (ii) […]

In a recent decision rendered on April 3, 2012 (n°11-13527), the Commercial Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) held that Article L.442-6 I-5° of the French Commercial Code (hereinafter “FCC”), a “public policy” provision according to which a party that is the victim of an abrupt breach of commercial relationships may claim […]

On February 10, 2012, the Autorité de la concurrence (French Competition Authority, hereinafter the “FCA”) published its Framework-Document on antitrust compliance programs. As underlined by the FCA, “compliance programs are instruments that enable economic players to increase their chances to avoid breaches of all kinds of rules that are applicable to their activity, including competition […]