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

The Union legislator has carried out an exhaustive harmonization of the conditions for the lawfulness of comparative advertising in the Member States. These conditions, set out in Article 4 of Directive No 2006/114 of 12 December 2006, are cumulative and must be respected in their entirety .
The comparison is lawful when:
-  it is not misleading;
-  it compares goods or services meeting the same n …

 Cumulative conditions

The Union legislator has carried out an exhaustive harmonization of the conditions for the lawfulness of comparative advertising in the Member States. These conditions, set out in Article 4 of Directive No 2006/114 of 12 December 2006, are cumulative and must be respected in their entirety .

-  it compares goods or services meeting the same needs or intended for the same purpose;

-  it objectively compares one or more material, relevant, verifiable and representative features of those goods and services, which may include price;

-  it does not discredit or disparage the trade marks, trade names, other distinguishing marks, goods, services, activities or circumstances of a competitor;

-  for products with a designation of origin, it relates in each case to products with the same designation;

-  it does not take unfair advantage of the reputation of a trade mark, trade name or other distinguishing marks of a competitor or of the designation of origin of competing products;

-  it does not present goods or services as an imitation or reproduction of goods or services bearing a protected trade mark or trade name;

-  it does not create confusion among traders, between the advertiser and a competitor or between the advertiser's trade marks, trade names, other distinguishing marks, goods or services and those of a competitor. 

On the other hand, the directive does not require that products come from the same distribution channels. Therefore, the comparison is lawful even if it relates to two products bought through different distribution channels, an official distributor for one and parallel importers for the other . For the Court of Justice, such a requirement would also be contrary to the objectives of the internal market and would hamper the efforts made by the Union authorities to limit the partitioning of national markets .

  Case C-44/01 Pippig Augenoptik GmbH & Co. KG, Judgment of 8 April 2003, LawLex200900000827JBJ.

French Consumer Law

273. Cumulative conditions

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

273. Cumulative conditions

Demandez un accès gratuit au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise

Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise