Defence rights: The Paris court of appeals rules that the inclusion by the French Competition Authority in the case file and in the administrative report, without any redaction or caveat of documents including personal allegations against the attorney of a prosecuted company, breaches this company’s defence rights (GEA Group, Brenntag)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. Can a lawyer be treated as a litigant like any other in an investigation? One might have thought that this issue was reserved for the current judicial situation in criminal matters and that competition litigation was preserved from it. This would have been wrong, as demonstrated by the decision handed down by the Paris Court of Appeal on February 2, 2017, ruling on an appeal against the decision of the Competition Authority in the chemical commodities sector (Aut. conc., dec. of May 28, 2013, No. 13-D-12, p. 2).) By partially annulling the Authority's decision and the report of the investigation services, the Paris Court of Appeal has in fact highlighted