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

Since the LME Law, organizing promotional sales outside the fixed sales period is no longer punishable under Article L. 310-5 of the Commercial Code, which only punishes the fact of using the word sales or its derivatives for operations which are not sales or to discount goods which have not been stock for more than a month. However, advertising for an unlawful sales operation may constitute an of …

 Unlawful advertising for unauthorized sales

Pursuant to Article L. 442-2 of the Commercial Code, “any trader who resells or announces the resale of a product as it stands at a price lower than its actual purchase price, is punished by a fine of EUR 75,000”. The prohibition of below cost reselling  is to ensure fair competition between the different forms of distribution. Where the resale at a loss is justified by the nature of the goods or the characteristics of the sale in order to rebalance the relations between competitors of different economic power, it can escape the sanctions of Article L. 442-2 of the Commercial Code. The legislator has laid down several exceptions to the prohibition. For example, Article L. 442-4, I, 2° of the Commercial Code excludes from the scope of resale at a loss “products whose sale is markedly seasonal, during the end of the sales season and in the interval between two sales seasons”. On the grounds of this text, the courts had dismissed the prohibition of resale at a loss for sales operations . The LME Law enshrined this solution. Article L. 442-4 now provides, in sub-section 7°, that the prohibition of resale at a loss is not applicable “to the sale products referred to in Article L. 310-3”. This clarification should provide greater legal certainty to operators wishing to discount products which do not necessarily have a marked seasonal nature, as any type of goods may be subject to sales. 

 CA Limoges, 22 February 1995, LawLex200200002691JBJ: in this case, the judgment applies the exception to the prohibition of resale at a loss provided for by Article L. 442-4, I, 1°, a) of the Commercial Code, now L. 442-4, I, 2°, after the reform carried out by Law No 2008-776 of 4 August 2008.

Resale below cost

Since the LME Law, organizing promotional sales outside the fixed sales period is no longer punishable under Article L. 310-5 of the Commercial Code, which only punishes the fact of using the word sales or its derivatives for operations which are not sales or to discount goods which have not been stock for more than a month. However, advertising for an unlawful sales operation may constitute an offense . Indeed, under Article L. 121-22, 1° (former Article L. 121-15, 1°) of the Consumer Code, “any advertising relating to a commercial operation subject to authorization or declaration under […] Articles L. 310-1 to L. 310-4 […] is prohibited”. Pursuant to Article L. 132-24 (former Article L. 121-15, paragraph 6), “the fact for any advertiser to disseminate or cause the dissemination of advertising prohibited under the conditions laid down in Article L. 121-22 shall be liable to an administrative fine not exceeding EUR 15,000 for a natural person and EUR 75,000 for a legal entity. The fine is imposed in accordance with the conditions laid down in Chapter II of Title II of Book V”.

 Cass. crim., 22 April 2000, LawLex200400004611JBJ.

French Consumer Law

328. Unlawful advertising for unauthorized sales

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328. Unlawful advertising for unauthorized sales

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise