Bertrand du Marais

CE, 13.07.12, Commune d’Aix-en-Provence, box n°358512 The Commune of Aix-en-Provence has launched a public service delegation procedure for the management of a pound and an animal shelter. The commune, wishing to group these two activities on the same site, wanted to entrust them to the same (...)

CE, Ass. 26 October 2011, Commune of Saint Denis, n° 326492 The Council of State gives full effect to sectoral regulation in relation to the general administrative police. By excluding, once again, the competence of mayors to use their general police powers to regulate the installation of (...)

Decree No. 2011-2065 of 30 December 2011 relating to the rules for awarding administrative emphyteutic leases, JORF No. 303 of 31 December 2011, p. 23003 The question of competitive bidding for titles of occupation of the public domain has been a recurrent issue for several years. Indeed, some (...)

CJEU, 24 May 2011, Commission v. France, Case C-50/08 Five years ago, in these same columns, we were able to indicate: "the initial draft directive on services in the internal market (known as the "Bolkestein" directive) did not systematically envisage that the regulated legal professions (...)

Banking and Financial Regulation Bill, adopted without amendment on 2nd reading by the National Assembly on 11 October 2010 With Directive 2003/87, the European Community embarked on the construction of its most ambitious environmental policy by creating a European system for trading CO2 (...)

CJEU, 15 July 2010, Commission v. Germany, case C-271/08 Collective agreements are not excluded as a matter of principle from the scope of the free movement of services and the freedom to provide services. Only if the implementation of the procedures provided for in Directive 2004/18 is (...)

CE, 18 June 2010, Commune de Saint-Pal-de-Mons, n° 337377 The Council of State specifies the application of the provisions of Article 53 of the Public Procurement Code, which require the contracting authority to inform candidates of the criteria for selecting bids and their weighting or (...)

EC, Ass. opinion of 29 April 2010, Beligaud v/ Electricité de France - Energie Méditerranée n° 323179 For strategic and technical reasons - electricity being a non-storable commodity - the public authorities wanted the controlled liberalisation of the electricity industry. Thus the transposition (...)

CE, 31 March 2010, Collectivité Territoriale de Corse, n° 334279 The Council of State confirms and clarifies its case law on the obligations of information and transparency imposed on the contracting authority with regard to selection criteria in the context of the so-called adapted procedure, (...)

CE, February 10, 2010, Prest’action Company, n° 301116 Public contracts are the subject of growing disputes over the delimitation of the respective competences of the public principal and the private operator, especially as the financial arrangements to which they give rise are becoming (...)

CE, 8 February 2010, Commune de Chartres, n° 323158 For both contracting parties, the duration of a contract is a crucial parameter of their economic equilibrium. From the general point of view of ’collective welfare’, it is also a determining factor in the competitive intensity of the relevant (...)

The recent publication of the 2009 annual report of the Council of State, published in full, reveals an interesting opinion given by its consultative formation (the Administration Section) on the conditions of competitive tendering for semi-public companies (SEMs) involving the presence of an (...)

Cons. constitutionnel, dec. n°2008-567 DC of July 24, 2008, Law on partnership contracts Contract administration is omnipresent in our economic environment. The securing of contractual relationships is undoubtedly a component of economic efficiency. However, this can only be seen in relation to (...)

CE, Section, 11 July 2008, Ville de Paris, n°312354 The "Vélib’" service was the subject of a public contract signed on 27 February 2007 between the City of Paris and Somupi, a subsidiary of JCDecaux. A global contract for urban planning, technical and financial reasons, the contract covers both (...)

ECJ, 19 June 2008, Pressetex Nachrichtenagentur GmbH v. Republik Österreich (Bund), case C-454/06 The Court of Justice of the European Communities emphasises that, in order to ensure the transparency of procedures and equal treatment of tenderers, amendments made to a public contract during its (...)

CE, Section, 6 June 2008, CM CIC Securities, No. 300619 CE, Sect., 6 June 2008, Société Tradition Securities et Futures, No. 299203 In terms of financial market regulation, investment service providers (ISPs) are subject to very strict professional obligations because of their responsibilities (...)

Bill amending Ordinance No. 2004-559 of 17 June 2004 on public-private partnerships adopted by the Senate on 4 April 2008 and the National Assembly on 26 June 2008 Report to the Prime Minister by Mr E. Besson on 27 May 2008: "Better purchasing for better public service: from complex public (...)

CE, 21 May 2008, Société Nouvelle de Remorquage du Havre, n° 291115 In a decision that is very rich in terms of the number of aspects reviewed, the Conseil d’État recalls its previous case law (EC, 16 Jan. 2002, Syndicat national des entreprises d’esthétique et de coiffure à domicile, CJEG May 2002, (...)

CE, 4 April 2008, Société Federal Express, No. 296601 EC, 4 April 2008, Ryanair Ltd, No 298926 CE, 7 May 2008, Société Air France, No. 294213 Airport charges are one element in the price war between low-cost airlines and traditional airlines such as Air France, in a context that has been totally (...)

EC, 26 March 2008, Reunion Region, No. 284412 The scope of the principle of competition continues to extend to the provision of vocational training: the Council of State has instituted here the obligation for local authorities to subject their providers of training modules to the competitive (...)

EC Commission, 5 February 2008, Interpretative Communication on the application of Community law on public procurement and concessions to institutionalised public-private partnerships (IPPPs), OJEU No C 91 of 12 April 2008, p. 4. On 5 February 2008, the European Commission published an (...)

CE, 10 October 2007, Société SPS Tarbes, n° 255213 The Conseil d’État clearly states that there is no general principle of concession law consisting in the exclusivity of the concessionaire. The administrative judge apprehends infringements of competition law in contractual matters mainly at the (...)

CE, Sect. 30 November 2007, Tinez et al. 293952 Market authorities generally have the power to take up ex officio cases that fall within their jurisdiction. However, in the exercise of their duties, it is not uncommon for third parties to ask them through a complaint - or a denunciation - to (...)

CE, 19 December 2007, Société Campenon Bernard e.a., no. 268918 While competition law aims to protect the free functioning of the market, the logic of public procurement traditionally aims to pursue the general interest through "equality before public procurement, the protection of public (...)

CE, Section, 16 July 2007, Syndicat National de Défense de l’Exercice Libéral de la Médecine à l’Hopital e. a., n° 293229 The existence of a "private sector" within the public hospital has always been both an original feature of the French health system and a source of recurrent legal difficulties. (...)

CE, Ass. 16 July 2007, Tropic Travaux Signalisation, No. 291545 The appeal in cassation lodged by the company Tropic travaux signalisation Guadeloupe, which was excluded from the invitation to tender for a contract concerning the marking of aircraft areas and road pavements at Pointe-à-Pitre (...)

CE, Section, 6 April 2007, Commune d’Aix en Provence c/ Armand, n° 284736 In this very interesting ruling of principle, the Conseil d’État both settles a question of great practical interest - must "paramunicipal" associations be subject to prior competition under public service delegations - and (...)

CE, Ass. 8 February 2007, Société Arcelor Atlantique et Lorraine, No. 287110 The steel sector is, due to the use of fossil materials that emit high levels of CO2, subject to the greenhouse gas emissions trading system. However, some of the goods it offers on the markets are in direct competition (...)

CE, Sect. 31 January 2007, Compagnie Corse Air International (Corsair), n° 290567 Rather than relying on Article 6, §1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council of State relies on the provisions of Article L. 227-4 of the Civil Aviation Code to decide that the person on whom an (...)

CE, 26 January 2007, Syndicat Professionnel de la Géomatique, n° 276928 Decree No. 2004-1246 of 22 November 2004 instituted an exclusive right to supply the State and its public establishments to the National Geographic Institute (IGN) with data from the large-scale reference system, which has (...)

ECJ, 18 January 2007, Jean Auroux and Others v. Commune de Roanne, Case C-220/05. Clearly, the local mixed economy is going through a bad period with Community law. This decision of the ECJ confirms the doubts that one might have concerning the compatibility of the system of "development (...)

It postpones the privatization of Gaz de France until the market liberalization has been completed Cons. const. dec. no. 2006-543 DC of 30 November 2006, Law on the energy sector, JORF no. 284 of 8 December 2006 p. 18544 Liberalisation of the energy market: the Constitutional Council recalls (...)

This information should not impair fair competition and be an infringement of professional secrecy CE, 20 October 2006, Syndicat des eaux de Charente-Maritime, n° 278601 (to be mentioned in the tables of the Recueil Lebon) The difficult conciliation between transparency and competition To (...)

However, the Conseil d’État exerts a reasonableness test as to the amount of these fees which should neither be detrimental to competition nor should lead to disproportionate profits Difficult conciliation between the protection of intellectual property and the defence of competition: the (...)

CE Ass. 31 May 2006, Ordre des avocats au Barreau de Paris, No. 275531 Initially brought before the Administrative Jurisdiction Division, this case was finally decided by the Litigation Assembly, the most solemn formation of the Council of State, as if to underline its importance and (...)

ECJ, 6 April 2006, Associazione Nazionale Autotrasporto Viaggiatori (ANAV), Case C-410/04. The present case is an extension, but also provides a useful summary, of the principles laid down by the Court of Justice in relation to "in house" services and resulting from the Teckal case law (ECJ, (...)

For an analysis of this judgment from the "State aid" angle, see Concurrencesn°2-2006, p.124, obs. J. D. ECJ, 30 March 2006, Servizi Aussiliari Dottori Commercialisti Srl v Giuseppe Calafiori, Case C-451/03 This case marks the extension of the application of Community law to certain activities, (...)

CE, Ass. 4 November 2005, Société Jean-Claude Decaux, n° 247298 and n° 247299 The street furniture market: a highly contested market The commented judgment, which groups together two similar cases, will undoubtedly put an end - hopefully definitively - to the long-standing discussion on the legal (...)

CE, 26 September 2005, Mutuelle Générale des Services Publics, No. 262282 By this decision, the Conseil d’État annulled a system of exclusive subsidies for excess of power (see not. N. C., Actualités Concurrence et Régulations, AJDA, 2005). The subsidy scheme in question benefited the Mutualité (...)

ECJ, 11 January 2005, Stadt Halle, case C-26/03 The judgment provides useful clarifications on a controversial and very sensitive issue, particularly in France, Germany and Belgium, where the "mixed economy" is very widespread: under what conditions can the services of a semi-public company (...)

CAA Bordeaux, November 9, 2004, SODEGIS, n° 01BX00381 Law No. 2005-809 of 20 July 2005 on development concessions Since it carried out a genuine cultural revolution in the mid-1990s, the administrative judge has taken the principle of competition into consideration when exercising the control (...)

CAA Paris, 5 October 2004, Min. culture c/ Sté Internationale de diffusion et d’édition, 01PA02717, 01PA02761, 01PA02777, 03PA04060 The distribution of French books throughout the world is an important component of France’s cultural policy and is based on the principle of "cultural exception". The (...)

CE, 16 June 2004, Mutuelle générale des services publics and others, Nos 235176, 238290 and 238291 This decision, which should only be mentioned in the tables of the Recueil Lebon, is very important in public competition law (see not., N. CHARBIT, Actualités de droit de la concurrence, AJDA, n° (...)