COMPETITION • FRENCH LAW • RESTRICTIVE AGREEMENTS
According to the Competition Authority, an intra-group agreement, i.e. between a parent company and its subsidiary or between subsidiaries, escapes the prohibition of Article L. 420-1 as long as the subsidiary or subsidiaries have no economic autonomy vis-à-vis the parent company. For the Court of Cassation, it is necessary and sufficient that the subsidiaries that are the instigators of the anticompetitive behavior belong to the same undertaking to exclude the existence of a restrictive agreement between them.
In the area of concerted bidding, case law now considers that Article L. 420-1 is not applicable when different undertakings without autonomy belonging to the same group of companies coordinate their bids while presenting themselves to the outside world as competitors. The concertation may possibly fall under public procurement law.
