Week of 3 February 2025

Sudden termination of established commercial relationship
When a presenter’s decision to stop hosting the program he co-produces leads to the television channel’s decision not to renew the program, due to the inseparable nature of the presenter’s personality and the program’s concept, the resulting harm to the other producer, directly linked to the presenter’s decision, consists in the loss of a margin, even if this margin came from the sale of programs to the television channel.
CA Paris, 17 January 2025, No 22/13998

Action by the Minister of the Economy
The agents of the DGCCRF cannot be accused of using an unfair procedure to obtain the documents subsequently produced by the Minister of the Economy in support of the latter’s action under L. 442-1, I, 2°, of the Commercial Code, insofar as the standardized tables sent to the suppliers of the companies in question, as supplementary requests for information, were not designed to confirm the provisional conclusions of the investigators as to the existence of practices restrictive of competition, but to supplement them, and as their recipients, who by virtue of belonging to large multinational groups, were particularly well-informed and able to appreciate the implications of the procedure, were entirely free to respond.
CA Paris, 22 January 2025, No 23/04477

Action for damages
An action for damages for competitive harm brought more than five years after the Competition Authority’s decision, which triggered the running of the limitation period, is time-barred notwithstanding the earlier act of referring the matter to the Competition Authority, which, although it is one of the acts referred to in Article L. 462-7 of the Commercial Code as having an interruptive effect, occurred well before the start of the time-limit, so that it cannot interrupt a period which has not yet begun to run.
CA Paris, 22 January 2025, No 23/04477

Class action for collection in competition claims
The legislation of a Member State may not preclude a class action for the recovery of damages resulting from a restrictive agreement if it does not provide for any other collective means of grouping together the individual claims of injured parties, and if it proves impossible or excessively difficult to bring an individual action for damages.
CJEU Case C-253/23 ASG 2 Ausgleichsgesellschaft für die Sägeindustrie Nordrhein-Westfalen GmbH, Judgment of 28 January 2025, LawLex202500000868JBJ

State aid
It cannot be inferred from the mere participation of the applicant in the administrative procedure that it is individually concerned by the contested decision, even if it played an important role in that administrative procedure.
GCEU Case T‑334/22 Danske Fragtmænd A/S, Judgment of 29 January 2025, LawLex202500000869JBJ