Request for opinion: The French Competition Authority rejects a request for opinion from the Ministry of Economy amounting to a request for an individual exemption of an agreement between undertakings and compels the Ministry to reformulate a general competition question

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. Aut. conc. opinion No. 11-A-11 of July 12, 2011 on contract negotiation methods in the livestock sector in a context of volatile agricultural commodity prices. (See also, supra, "Agreements" column, obs. Mr. Debroux) It is known that the Minister has the power to request the Authority "on any matter concerning competition" on the basis of Article L. 462-1 of the Commercial Code. On the other hand, neither French law nor Community law (since the introduction of Regulation 1/2003) allows prior notification and exemption of agreements likely to fall within the scope of antitrust law or abuse of a dominant position. It is these two principles that earned