20 january 2020

Sudden termination of established commercial relationship: Calls for tender
The calls for tenders launched by a client are not sufficient to make the relationship with the service provider invited to tender more precarious when they do not concern tasks that were previously entrusted to him.
CA Paris, 8 January 2020, LawLex2020000026JBJ

Sudden termination of established commercial relationship: Absence of force majeure
The economic crisis in a sector can justify the termination without notice of an established commercial relationship only if it appreciably affects the turnover of the undertaking seeking to rely on it.
CA Paris, 8 January 2020, LawLex2020000031JBJ

Sudden termination of established commercial relationship: Serious breach
A service provider who is guilty of serious and repeated breaches of basic safety rules incurs the termination without notice of the established commercial relationship, even if those breaches were not immediately sanctioned by a ban or shutdown of his stand.
CA Paris, 8 January 2020, LawLex2020000028JBJ

Sudden termination of established commercial relationship: Unfair conduct
The supplier’s behavior i.e. breaching its non-compete commitment by contacting its distributor’s customers to offer them substitutable products at better prices, justifies the immediate termination of the established commercial relationship.
CA Paris, 8 January 2020, LawLex2020000043JBJ

Sudden termination of established commercial relationship: Length of notice
The offer to extend the notice period may be validly refused by the terminated supplier when the terms offered are significantly different from the initial terms.
CA Paris, 8 January 2020, LawLex2020000030JBJ

Actions available for abuse of dependence: international disputes
A jurisdiction clause which does not expressly mention the sudden termination of established commercial relations may nevertheless apply to this type of action when it refers not only to “any legal action or legal proceedings related to an order” but also to any legal action or procedure related to “the present terms”.
CA Paris, 7 January 2020, LawLex2020000022JBJ

Actions available for abuse of dependence: Civil fine
The undertaking having absorbed a company responsible for a sudden termination of established commercial relations, which was wound up without being liquidated, is liable for the latter’s conduct.
CA Paris, 8 January 2020, LawLex2020000031JBJ

Civil sanctions: Jurisdiction
The applicability of a jurisdiction clause in the context of a liability lawsuit based on anticompetitive practices differs according to the link between the conduct and the contract containing the clause, not according to the type of conduct alleged (restrictive agreement or abuse of dominant position).
CA Paris, 7 January 2020, LawLex2020000022JBJ

Abuse of dominant position: Refusal to sell or provide services
A head of network which neither prohibits parallel exports or imports nor restricts the freedom of purchase and supply of its authorized distributors does not commit an abuse of a dominant position by refusing to sell the contract goods to a third-party importer.
Court of Cassation, commercial chamber, 15 January 2020, LawLex2020000053JBJ

Merger control: Temporal market
It is necessary to define a global market for the retail distribution of internet access on the France metropolitan territory, as the segmentation between distance sales and online sales for the distribution of fixed internet access defined in 2014 in the context of the clearance decision is no longer in line with market realities, insofar as: the number of online purchases is increasing and fewer purchases are made in stores; the products on offer and the prices are the same irrespective of the distribution channel; sales routes are designed to be omni-channel and to allow the customer to benefit from the complementarity of the sales channels with each other, and no channel is intended to be exclusive in the sales strategy.
Competition Authority, 28 October 2019, LawLex2020000024JBJ

Horizontal mergers: Combined market share
In the healthcare sector, there is a risk that the new entity will have an incentive to increase the price of ancillary accommodation services, when the same group has a market share of more than 50% in at least two major diagnostic categories – this criterion also makes it possible to take account of strong positions on specialized activity groups – whereas the possession of a very strong position on a single major diagnostic category is not, in itself, constitutive of market power.
Competition Authority, 30 October 2019, LawLex2020000033JBJ

Horizontal mergers: Conglomerate effects
The concentration which, regardless of the geographic area concerned, does not allow the new entity to be the only operator to hold a specific authorization to provide a certain type of care and is not likely to bring together, within the same group, several related authorizations for care activities which form a portfolio that third-party establishments in certain territories would not have, is not likely to harm competition through conglomerate effects.
Competition Authority, 30 October 2019, LawLex2020000033JBJ

Merger control: Review of remedies
Irrespective of the developments observed on the market, the Competition Authority is not empowered, in the context of a review of the corrective remedies adopted under a merger control procedure, to impose on the parties more onerous commitments than in the initial decision, in this case the authorization decision.
Competition Authority, 28 October 2019, LawLex2020000024JBJ

Merger control: Review of remedies
The current situation of the markets previously analyzed in 2014 does not justify that the commitments and the injunctions without penalties attached, concluded for an initial duration of five years by the entity concerned in the context of the authorization decision of 2014, be extended for a new five-year period..
Competition Authority, 28 October 2019, LawLex2020000024JBJ