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

Unlike sales with a bonus that were subject to a prohibition per se and strictly applied exceptions, the courts interpret broadly and on a case-by-case basis the prohibition of tied sales or services which they have accompanied by a number of exceptions.
Some sales in an imposed quantity of identical products under the same packaging, such as the sale of eggs, yoghurt, candy, pre-cut ham, are, in  …

Indivisible, identical or complementary products

Unlike sales with a bonus that were subject to a prohibition per se and strictly applied exceptions, the courts interpret broadly and on a case-by-case basis the prohibition of tied sales or services which they have accompanied by a number of exceptions.

Some sales in an imposed quantity of identical products under the same packaging, such as the sale of eggs, yoghurt, candy, pre-cut ham, are, in the eyes of the judge, justified . The products or services concerned must form a whole in order for their tied selling to be lawful. This is not the case with the third-party liability insurance which the law requires motorists to have to allow compensation of third parties in the event of an accident, the object of which is different from that of the “protection” insurance, which guarantees the insured person the payment of procedural costs in case of a dispute with a third party, irrespective of the nature of the dispute . In that regard, an ordinance issued on 16 May 2018 , added a new paragraph to Article L. 121-11 concerning insurance products, which prohibits “making the sale of a good or the supply of a service subject to the conclusion of an insurance contract ancillary to the good or service sold, without allowing the consumer to purchase the goods or obtain the supply of the service separately”. The sale by batch is also not contrary to Article L. 121-11 (former Article L. 122-1), when the products or services can be dissociated and the consumer can acquire them separately .

Courts also validate the bundled sale of complementary products or services. This assumption includes the sale of computers with pre-installed operating software, because the software forms a whole with the computer and allows it to be used . On the other hand, the pre-installation of other software would be subject to the prohibition of tied sales if it is not necessary for the use of the computer, can be acquired subsequently by the user and installed easily thereafter. The Court of Cassation held that the coupled sale of a computer and its operating system constitutes an unfair commercial practice only if the consumer is not able to purchase an identical bare computer from the manufacturer . However, when resellers are unable to sell the two elements separately and isolate their cost, the unfair nature of the tied sale is excluded . The assessment of the lawfulness of this commercial practice is debated within French case law , to such an extent that in 2015 the Court of Cassation asked the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the unfairness of the joint offer of a computer that has pre-installed software when the manufacturer does not specify the cost of each component, leaves the consumer no choice but to accept the software or obtain the cancellation of the sale or does not offer computers without software . The Court of Justice ruled : the sale of a computer equipped with pre-installed software does not in itself constitute an unfair commercial practice. Moreover, the absence of an indication of the price of each of software package does not characterize a misleading commercial practice when the price of these elements does not represent material information such as to prevent the consumer from making a commercial decision in full knowledge of the facts, or lead him to take a commercial decision which he would not otherwise have taken. The Court of Cassation has enshrined that solution finding that Directive No 2005/29 only requires professionals to inform the consumer of the overall price of the product concerned and not the price of each of its constituent elements .

Cass. crim., 29 October 1984, LawLex200400000134JBJ: "several units of the same goods combined in a single package in accordance with the commercial practices established in the interests of consumers" constitute a single product.

CA Paris, 17 December 1993, LawLex200400000125JBJ.

Cass. 1re civ., 29 March 2017, LawLex201700000646JBJ.

Ordinance No 2018-361 on insurance distribution, OJ No 112 of 17 May 2018. 

In this type of sale, products sold in batches must include a notice stating the price and composition of the batch and the prices of each product in the batch (Article 7, Order of December 3, 1987 on consumer information on prices). 

CA Montpellier, 7 May 2009, LawLex201000001063JBJ: the installation by a company of an operating system in the computers it manufactures and markets is not contrary to Article L. 121-11 of the Consumer Code since the operating system in question does not constitute an "other product" whose purchase is subject to that of the computer, but only an element of the computer which enables its immediate use; TGI Tarascon, 20 November 2008, LawLex200900002916JBJ, which decided that a pre-equipped computer constitutes a product in its entirety and not a given element at the choice of the buyer.

Cass. 1re civ., 5 February 2014, LawLex201400000181JBJ.

CA Versailles, 22 January 2015, LawLex201500000124JBJ.

 Cass. 1re civ., 5 February 2014, LawLex201400000181JBJ, cited above: the combined sale of a computer and its operating system in a retail space open to the public constitutes a commercial practice within the meaning of Directive No 2005/29, even if they are intended for SMEs and self-employed professionals. Cf. Cass. 1re civ., 5 June 2008, LawLex201500001205JBJ, excluding any unfair commercial practice on the grounds that the purchaser, although an informed customer, had never expressed the desire to purchase a computer with no pre-installed software and that, despite the non-display of the breakdown of the price of the computer equipment, competition remained possible between the different solutions present on the market; 12 July 2012, LawLex201200001320JBJ: the online sale of computers pre-equipped with operating software, with no indication of the substantial elements such as the price of the software, does not constitute a practice of tied selling presenting an unfair nature, when the consumer is able, by Internet links, to go to a site dedicated to professionals allowing him to purchase "bare" computers and he is advised that the free installation of an operating system is a complex procedure whose success is not guaranteed; 20 December 2012, LawLex201300000005JBJ: the sale of a computer equipped with pre-installed operating software is not unlawful, when it is not established that it presents the nature of an unfair commercial practice within the meaning of Article L. 121-1 of the Consumer Code.

 Cass. 1re civ., 17 June 2015, LawLex201500000803JBJ.

 Case C-310/15 Deroo-Blanquart Judgment of 7 September 2016, LawLex201600001382JBJ.

French Consumer Law

232. Indivisible, identical or complementary products

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

232. Indivisible, identical or complementary products

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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