Marie Koehler de Montblanc

Cass. com, 21 February 2012, Valence automobiles and Pasquinelli Holding v. Toyota France, appeal No. 11-13.276 A car manufacturer had refused to approve two companies as distributors of its products. Excluded from this marketing, they had been awarded damages in the first instance for the (...)

Paris Commercial Court, 8 November 2011, Outremer Télécom v Orange Caraïbe and France Télécom, RG n° 2010073867 Facts The incumbent telephone operator and one of its subsidiaries had been convicted by the French Competition Authority for abuse of a dominant position; a conviction upheld by the (...)

Cass. com, 7 June 2011, Santeclair, Appeal No. 10-12038 An insurance company had offered dental surgeons to enter into partnerships under which they would agree not to exceed a maximum rate for a certain number of benefits. The National Council of Dental Surgeons had found the terms of these (...)

Facts A private individual had ordered kitchen units at a trade fair. When a technician came to his home, he had signed a new purchase order, which was presented as a rider, under which the price was increased. Taking the view that that new order replaced the first one by novation, he then (...)

A company involved in a cartel case was a wholly owned subsidiary of a corporation, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent company. The Commission had jointly and severally sanctioned these three companies, thereby holding the parent company liable for the illegal behaviour of a (...)

Facts In the context of a competition investigation procedure, a Dutch company had invoked with the Commission the rule of confidentiality of lawyer-client correspondence in respect of communications it had exchanged with its in-house lawyer. The Commission and then the Court of First (...)

The Paris Court of Appeal has appealed against a decision handed down by the Competition Authority on February 2, 2009 (No. 09-D-05), under which various temporary employment agencies had been convicted for having concerted on their commercial policy towards some of their clients. The Paris (...)

Facts In order to establish competition violations committed by a parent company, a judge of freedoms and detention had authorized, pursuant to Article L. 450-4 of the Commercial Code, the Ministry of the Economy to carry out visits and seizures on the premises of a 24%-owned subsidiary. The (...)

We will first make a point of regulation (reporting the remarks of Noël Renaudin, President of the Health Products Committee) (I) then an economic point of the drug distribution system (reporting the remarks of Patrick Rey, Professor of Economics at the University of Toulouse I) (II) and finally (...)

Facts A manufacturer of cosmetic products prohibited its authorised distributors from selling certain brands of cosmetic and personal hygiene products on the Internet. He was prosecuted for infringement of Articles L. 420-1 of the French Commercial Code and 81 of the Treaty of the European (...)

Facts For several years, Greek wholesalers had been buying certain medicines from a pharmaceutical company with a dominant position on the Greek market with a view to redistributing them in Greece and in other Member States with higher selling prices. From November 2000 to February 2001, the (...)

Facts On 21 October 1998, the Competition Council took up the competition situation in the luxury perfume sector on its own initiative. In September 2000, an administrative investigation report by the DGCCRF was filed with the rapporteur and transmitted to the Council. In June 2003, the (...)

Facts During 2006, the LVMH Group brought three lawsuits against eBay Inc. and eBay International AG (hereinafter eBay), concerning their activity as "host" of online auction offers. Claiming to be subject to acts of unfair competition, the perfumers, subsidiaries of the luxury group, have (...)

Facts A central purchasing agency had launched an advertising campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of opening up the self-medication market. The message emphasised that the possibility for parapharmacies linked to this purchasing group to sell medicines not reimbursed by the health (...)

Facts A visit to the premises of a company was carried out by the National Directorate for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DNECCRF) with the authorisation of the liberty and detention judge of the Nanterre Regional Court. At the time of this investigation, certain documents (...)

The abuse of a dominant position through predatory pricing has been difficult to characterise since the Akzo ruling by the ECJ on 3 July 1991. The judgment defined predation as "the practice by which a dominant undertaking fixes its prices at a level [far below its costs] (...) with the object (...)

The Competition Council, seized by a consumer association, sanctioned seven doctors’ unions for having issued instructions to encourage their members - sector 1 specialist doctors - to increase their fees by a collective, extended and, at times, systematic use of "exceptional overruns". It (...)

The Paris Court of Appeal upholds the decision of the Competition Council which found against 22 companies for a total of €580,000 for having implemented anti-competitive agreements and inserted anti-competitive clauses in their general terms and conditions of sale and other distribution (...)

The Commission ordered E.ON to pay a fine of EUR 38 million for breaking seals affixed to its premises during an inspection. The Commission stressed that it "cannot tolerate attempts by companies to undermine its fight against cartels and other anti-competitive practices by threatening the (...)

A tour operator that marketed its "products" through exclusive agents decided to also offer them on a website it had created. The agents, grouped together in an association for the defence of their interests, considered that they were deprived of the turnover achieved through the site and (...)

Facts France Telecom was sanctioned for abusing its dominant position. The latter discriminated against Internet service providers competing with its subsidiary Wanadoo, firstly by making available to them information on the eligibility of ADSL lines that was less up-to-date and less precise (...)

Five suppliers were fined a total of EUR 19.5 million for agreeing, prior to two tenders, on the amounts of their respective bids and on the behaviour expected from each bidder. Having not contested the objections notified to them, and having given certain undertakings, the latter requested (...)

Léonidas, a Belgian supplier of chocolates, markets its products in France through wholesalers which it required to resell only to certain retailers chosen by it. The Competition Council considers that this limitation constituted an infringement of competition for wholesalers, who cannot (...)

Facts An investigation carried out following a self-referral by the French Competition Council and a referral by the UFC-Que Choisir revealed that the three French mobile operators (Orange France, SFR, and Bouygues Télécom) exchanged strategic information between 1997 and 2003 and reached an (...)

Facts Pacific Création, a company specializing in the manufacture and distribution of fragrances, particularly the Lolita Lempicka brand, markets its products through a selective distribution network. In its agreements with resellers, it limits the use of Internet marketing by requiring that it (...)

The Competition Council has expressed its competition concerns to several companies in the cosmetics and personal hygiene sector about some of their practices. The main issues at stake are the total prohibition imposed by certain distribution contracts on authorised resellers from reselling all (...)

Facts The economic purpose of the EIG "Les indépendants" is to aggregate the audiences of certain local radio operators in order to provide a grouped offer of advertising space enabling them to access the national advertising market. In 2003, a company operating a local radio station, having (...)

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) for Southern Alsace has asked the Competition Council for an opinion on the compatibility with the provisions of Article L. 420-1 of the French Commercial Code of a draft occupancy indicator for hotels in the Mulhouse region. The CCI’s project consists (...)

Facts Two distributors of two-wheelers have referred the matter to the Competition Council to have two of their competitors (Yamaha Motor France and MBK) belonging to the same group (Yamaha) sanctioned for an anti-competitive cartel. Decision "In view of the elements set out (...), which (...)

Facts A supplier of spark plugs with a dominant position on this market has set up a selective distribution system for its products. He’s being blamed for this: To have agreed, with its distributors, on the resale price of its products; To have applied, in a discriminatory manner, the (...)

The European Commission published on 28 June 2006 new Guidelines on the method of setting fines for companies that infringe Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty on anti-competitive behaviour. The finding that the fines imposed hitherto had not had sufficient deterrent effect has led the (...)

Facts Three companies have been fined by the US authorities for implementing an anti-competitive cartel in the US. As these companies had European subsidiaries, the cartel had effects in Europe. Therefore, one of them denounced the cartel to the Commission in order to benefit from the (...)

Facts The Competition Council had imposed financial penalties on France Telecom and SFR for abusing their dominant positions on the market for the collection, transmission and direct interconnection of calls to mobile networks. They had taken advantage of their position on this market and (...)

Facts In 2001, two German mobile operators entered into an agreement to pool their telecommunications infrastructure and national roaming, allowing operators to use their competitors’ networks to provide services to their own customers without sharing network elements. As the agreement was (...)

Facts On June 22, 2005, the Competition Council condemned Royal Canin and fifteen members of its distribution network for having participated in a cartel concerning either wholesale or retail offers. In addition, Royal Canin was convicted of imposing pricing practices, customer restrictions (...)

Facts The Reims Bio company, whose business is the development, processing and sale of blood products, obtained its supplies from the Champagne-Ardennes Public Interest Group (GIPCA), a blood transfusion establishment under the supervision of the French Blood Agency (AFS). As the agreement (...)

pdf/Cons._conc._dec._no_05-D-72_20_decembre_2005.pdf Facts Drug exporting companies have complained that they have been subjected to delivery restrictions, discrimination, and denial of sales by twenty-one pharmaceutical companies. They have referred the matter to the Competition Council for (...)

Facts Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE), the exclusive distributor of Disney videocassettes for France, the distributors Casino and Carrefour, and the wholesaler SDO, agreed on consumer sales prices between 1995 and 1998. The French Competition Council was referred to by the Minister of (...)

Facts An investigation carried out following a self-referral by the French Competition Council on August 28, 2001, and a referral by the UFC-Que Choisir on February 22, 2002, revealed that the three French mobile telephone operators (Orange France, SFR, and Bouygues Télécom) have exchanged (...)

Facts In 2003, Free, Iliad, LDCom and Neuf Télécom referred to the French Competition Council (Conseil de la concurrence) the practices of TF1, M6 and France Télécom which they considered to be contrary to the rules prohibiting anti-competitive agreements and abuses of dominant position, and have (...)

Facts Neuf Télécom accused France Télécom of abusing its dominant position on the market for broadband Internet access services. Before the Competition Council, France Telecom argued that "should the Council decide to impose a financial penalty, it could not, without violating the non bis in idem (...)

Facts The Comité interprofessionnel des huiles essentielles françaises (CIHEF), a professional body bringing together producers and wholesalers, was prosecuted for having "initiated and implemented, for the 2000-2003 marketing years for essential oils of lavender and lavandin, a practice of (...)

Facts By a decision of 21 October 1998, the European Commission had fined several manufacturers and suppliers of district heating pipes for sharing the European market in a cartel and for boycotting a competitor. The Court of First Instance confirmed this decision on 20 March 2002. The (...)

Facts The Autorité de Régulation des Telecoms (ART) had defined three options containing the wholesale offers proposed by France Telecom’s alternative operators to Internet service providers wishing to market broadband Internet access (ADSL). Option three provided for the concession by France (...)

Facts As part of a strategy to reduce its selective distribution network, one supplier has drawn up a new distribution contract containing new criteria for the selection of its resellers. Faced with the refusal to renew its contract, a distributor referred the matter to the Competition (...)

Faits Deux associations regroupant des opérateurs alternatifs de télécommunications ont saisi le Conseil de la Concurrence d’une pratique mise en oeuvre par France Télécom, l’opérateur historique, qui consistait à offrir à tout nouveau souscripteur de forfait de téléphone mobile six mois d’abonnement (...)

Faits L’Autorité de régulation des télécommunications (ART) avait défini trois options contenant les offres de gros proposées par les opérateurs alternatifs et France Télécom aux fournisseurs d’accès internet (FAI) souhaitant commercialiser des accès à internet haut débit (ADSL). L’option 3 prévoyait la (...)

Faits L’entreprise IMS Health fournit aux laboratoires pharmaceutiques des études sur les ventes régionales de produits pharmaceutiques en Allemagne, formatées selon une structure particulière mise en place en partenariat avec les laboratoires. Cette structure est devenue un modèle type sur lequel (...)

Faits Le laboratoire pharmaceutique SANDOZ, fabricant et fournisseur de ciclosporine (médicament indispensable à la prévention du rejet des greffes) pour des établissements hospitaliers, et détenant le monopole de fabrication de ce produit indispensable aux praticiens, a appliqué un système de (...)

The Council of Ministers definitively adopted the new Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 (1 ) on the control of concentrations between undertakings which will enter into force on 1 May 2004 upon the enlargement of the European Union. This Regulation will replace Regulation (...)

Faits JCB est une société de droit anglais qui produit et commercialise des engins de chantier, des équipements de déblaiement et de construction, des machines agricoles ainsi que des pièces détachées. JCB distribue ses produits par l’intermédiaire d’un réseau de distribution combinant les (...)

Faits et procédure La société Bayer AG produit et commercialise, par l’intermédiaire de ses filiales, dans tous les Etats membres de la Communauté européenne, sous la marque Adalat, une gamme de médicaments destinée à soigner les maladies cardio-vasculaires. Les prix des médicaments « Adalat », fixés (...)