Search and seizure : The French Supreme Court quashes a judgment of the first president of the Paris Court of Appeals who denied the right of companies to be assisted by an attorney during antitrust inspections prior to the entry into force of the ordinance of 13 November 2008 and annuls the inspections carried out after the lawyers were expelled (Caisse régionale du crédit agricole du Finistère)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. One might have thought that the order of 13 November 2008 had definitively closed the debate on the right of companies to benefit from the assistance of a lawyer during competition inspections, by expressly enshrining this right in Article L. 450-4 of the Commercial Code. Recent jurisprudence of the criminal division of the Court of Cassation tells us that this is not the case. In fact, the order of 13 November 2008 only settled this debate for searches after its entry into force. However, the question arises whether, even before the introduction of this specific legal basis, the possibility of having a lawyer present during competition inspections was