Payment period: The French Competition Council refuses to apply Art. L. 420-4 C. code exemption to an inter-professional agreement aiming to limit payment periods (Opinion N° 05-A-17)

– Conc. conc. opinion No. 05-A-17 of 22 September 2005 on collective bargaining on inter-company payment periods The question of the reduction of payment periods under competition law has been raised for a long time: it was already a subject dealt with in an opinion of the Technical Commission on Restrictive Practices and Dominant Positions of 17 June 1977, in the Scrivener circular of 1978, and then in an opinion of the Competition Commission of 31 December 1981 (specifically on the compatibility of an interprofessional agreement on the reduction of payment periods with the prohibition of cartels, see BOSP No 4 of 28 January 1982, p. 63).), finally by the 1986 Order (Article 33), supplemented by the Law of 31 December