Business Law

In three decisions dated February 8, 2011, the Commercial Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) further clarified and complemented the conditions in which a commercial agent is entitled to severance indemnities at the end of the agency relationship. On the whole, the case law of the Cour de Cassation remains quite strict […]

Two decisions of the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court) dated January 18, 2011[1] dashed the hopes of lawyers and their clients on the possibility to request the invalidation of seizures of electronic data when documents covered by the client-attorney privilege (i.e. legal professional privilege, hereinafter “LPP”) happened to be seized. Even though the two […]

By judgment dated March 3rd, 2011[1], the General Court of the European Union (“General Court”) ruled on the determination of the respective contributions to be paid by companies held jointly and severally liable by the European Commission for the payment of an antitrust fine imposed on them for their participation in a cartel on the […]

By judgment dated January 20, 2011[1], the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) further extended the scope of the so-called “decisive influence” presumption. This notion is essential to determine who is liable in case of infringements of EU competition and antitrust rules by a company that is a member of a group of […]

In preamble, it should be recalled that pursuant to Article L. 134-12 of the French Commercial Code the payment of severance indemnities to a commercial agent following the termination of the contractual relationship between the commercial agent and his principal aims at compensating the agent for the future commissions lost on the business transacted with […]

In many aspects, the year 2010 has been the year of the modernization of EU competition and antitrust rules. Indeed, in the wake of the adoption of new rules on vertical cooperation agreements[1] and on certain categories of industry-specific agreements[2], two additional horizontal agreements block exemption regulations (“New Regulations”) were adopted on December 14, 2010[3], […]