The French Civil Supreme Court rejects the argument that the absence of other EU telecom operators in the overseas territories may imply no effect on the interstate trade, thus confirming the applicability of Article 102 TFEU (France Télécom / Orange Caraïbe)

EU-Competition Law in the Overseas: some recent French precedents* Parts of the territory of some EU-Member States are situated overseas. Does EU-Competition law apply there? Some recent French precedents answer this question. According to Art. 52 TEU the EU-treaties apply to the 27 Member States mentioned therefore. EU-law applies, in principle, to the whole territory of those Member States including the overseas parts of their territory. In Art. 355 TFEU, the territorial scope of the EU-treaties is further specified. There are more or less three ‘categories’ or ‘degrees’ of territorial scope with regard to the overseas (for a more extensive and general description see Kochenov’s article). First, the Outermost Regions, where EU-law applies, with the possibility for temporary