Obtaining an advantage without consideration
A supplier who fails to prove that he has performed “permanent product category referencing” or “new product marketing” services, which are distinct from the mere listing of the supplier’s products and separate from the buying and selling transaction, must reimburse the sums invoiced.
CA Paris, 29 November 2023, No 22/03166.

Significant imbalance
A distributor who gives notice of partial and then total delisting of the supplier’s products during the annual negotiation period and refuses to enter into negotiations, arguing that the framework agreement signed the previous year is extended throughout the period of notice granted, is subjecting its partner to a significant imbalance.
CA Paris, 29 November 2023, No 22/03166

Commitment procedure
While the Competition Authority’s collegial body is not bound by the terms of the report submitted by the investigating departments, nor obliged to make its position known even before it has deliberated on the matter, respect for the adversarial principle, which is part of procedural fairness, makes it necessary, when it departs radically from the hypotheses under discussion, to send the case back for further investigation, so that the relevant departments can analyze the elements of the case file in the light of the new interpretation adopted, and to allow the party concerned to present its observations on the basis of the data and calculations now considered relevant, so as to be in a position to defend its position effectively.
CA Paris, 30 November 2023, No 23/01145

Civil sanctions
A trade association that fails to establish the impact of the restrictive agreement on indirect clients, i.e. the businesses whose interests it defends, by means of precise financial data or a counterfactual scenario, but only uses reasoning based on analogy with different or theoretical cases, with no concrete link to the dispute, fails to demonstrate the alleged moral harm.
CA Paris, 22 November 2023, No 19/21794

Warranty against latent defects
The presumption of liability, which in matters of warranty against latent defects is linked to the status of professional seller, in that the latter is presumed to be aware of the defects of the thing and, consequently, is required to compensate the buyer for all consequences arising therefrom, does not apply in the event of a mistake as to the qualities of the thing sold.
CA Aix-en-Provence, 28 November 2023, No 19/19397