French Consumer Law is a comprehensive and comparative overview of French and EU law in this field, covering: advertising, unfair commercial practices, conditions for the validity of contracts, unfair terms, product conformity, latent defects, product safety.

French Consumer Law

Sponsorship advertising is the act of materially supporting an event, activity, person, or organization in order to promote the image, the name or the brand of the sponsor. The Paris Court of Appeal , has described sponsorship as an advertising medium which is not substitutable to other types of advertising. It has declared that sport sponsorship of football clubs produces - both by the wearing of the sponsor's brand on players' kit and by the broadcasting over loud-speakers and the exclusive display of the brand at the stadium - an effect whereby football fans are encouraged to purchase, the impact of which is all the greater given the significant amounts sponsors are willing to invest.

Sponsorship advertising has been particularly successful in sport where it sometimes takes on a particular form, i.e. “naming” , where a corporation gives its name or brand to a sporting arena, usually a stadium, or to a sporting event. Some companies or brands also wish to take advantage of the reputation of an event by associating their image to it without having to pay the organizers to become the official sponsor: this is known as ambush marketing.

Sponsorship advertising constitutes a specific contractual arrangement primarly due to the diversity of its expression. Its terms are so diverse that it borrows from a wide variety of contractual techniques. It differs from other types of communication and should not be confused with TV sponsorship, which is subject to specific regulations, and patronage .

CA Paris, 23 August 1995, LawLex200200002290JBJ.

E.g. TGI Paris, 9 January 1991, LawLex200300001847JBJ, sponsorship of the Skippers World Cup renamed "Grundig World Cup".

The similarities between sponsorship advertising and patronage were reinforced by the disappearance, under Law 87-571 of 23 July 1987, of the traditional division between "sports sponsorship" and "cultural patronage", extending the field of sponsorship beyond sport and extending patronage to sporting disciplines. 

59. Concept