Market : The French Supreme Court upholds the existence of a Roquefort cheese market and specifies the method to assess the damage caused by dominant supplier’s tied sales to the economy (Roquefort)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. Cass. com, 6 December 2005, Société des caves et des producteurs réunis du Roquefort v. Minister of the Economy, appeal No. 04-19.541 Facts Between 1995 and 1997, the Société des caves et des producteurs réunis du Roquefort (Société group) entered into commercial agreements providing for the exclusive or virtually exclusive supply of seven of the main distribution companies in return for overall discounts on invoiced sales. This had the effect of foreclosing competing producers or restricting their access to the market. On April 8, 2004, the French Competition Council (Conseil de la concurrence), acting on a referral from the Minister of the Economy,