Week of 17 February 2025

Jurisdiction of specialized courts
When the law on restrictive practices is raised as a defense, the court with territorial jurisdiction to hear the main claim for payment, if it is not a court designated by Article D. 442-3 of the Commercial Code, must, if its lack of jurisdiction is raised, depending on the circumstances and the interdependence of the claims, either declare itself incompetent in favor of the court designated by that provision and stay the proceedings pending a ruling by that specialized court on the claim, or refer the case in its entirety to that specialized court.
CA Aix-en-Provence, ch. 3-1, 5 February 2025, No 24/07141

Search and seizure operations
The handing over by the occupant of the premises to the Competition Authority, at the latter’s request, of items discovered during a duly authorized search but after it has ended, does not fall within the scope of the operations referred to in Article L. 450-4 of the Commercial Code, even if the commitment made to hand over such items is noted in the minutes of the visit, and therefore by cancelling the seizure of files removed after the raid had ended which should not have been taken and by ordering their restitution, the first President of the Court of Appeal lack competence and exceeds his powers.
Cass. com., 4 February 2025, No 24-80.128

Action for compensation for competitive harm
In claims for a parent company and its subsidiary to be held jointly and severally liable to pay compensation for the damage suffered as a result of an infringement, by that subsidiary of the competition rules, the court of place of residence the parent company seized of those claims to may, in order to establish its international jurisdiction, rely on the presumption that, where a parent company directly or indirectly holds all or almost all of the capital of a subsidiary that has infringed the competition rules, it exercises decisive influence over the subsidiary, provided that the defendants are not deprived of the opportunity to avail themselves of firm evidence suggesting either that the parent company did not directly or indirectly hold all or almost all of the subsidiary’s capital, or that that presumption should nevertheless be rebutted.
CJEU Case C-393/23 Athenian Brewery SA, Judgment of 13 February 2025,

State aid
The General Court, by ruling that the applicant was in competition with the beneficiary of the State aid on five routes from the international airport in question, without stating the reasons why it did not uphold the arguments of a third company challenging the existence of such competition, infringed the obligation to state the reasons on which its judgments are based in a manner sufficient to enable the parties concerned to be apprised of the grounds on which it relied.
CJEU Case Commission v Carpatair SA, Judgment of 13 February 2025,

Warranty against dispossession
If the company dispossessed of the vehicle that it had lawfully acquired from an undertaking that did not own it is entitled to obtain the refund of its sale price in order to be restored to the situation it was in before the loss of possession, its claim for damages for the cost of acquiring a replacement vehicle must, on the other hand, be dismissed since it would lead to a double remedy for the same harm.
CA Versailles, ch. com. 3-1, 5 February 2025, No 23/03269