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 professional seller of goods or services is bound vis-à-vis its customer by an obligation to provide information  which must enable the buyer to have all the information likely to affect that person's decision to enter into a contract in full knowledge of the facts. The obligation to provide information which, according to the Court of Cassation, is incumbent on both the manufacturer and the s …

Obligation to provide information

The professional seller of goods or services is bound vis-à-vis its customer by an obligation to provide information  which must enable the buyer to have all the information likely to affect that person's decision to enter into a contract in full knowledge of the facts. The obligation to provide information which, according to the Court of Cassation, is incumbent on both the manufacturer and the specialized dealer , requires informing the lay buyer on the characteristics of the thing, its conditions of use and the precautions to be taken when using it, but does not imply to obligation to recommend a particular solution  (contrary to the duty to advise).

The professional must inform the buyer of the characteristics of the thing sold, a concept widely interpreted by the courts. The professional seller must provide the buyer with complete and reliable information on the essential characteristics of the good sold, by inquiring itself, if necessary, with the manufacturer to do so and by performing all useful verifications to ensure its accuracy . It is the responsibility of the seller to alert the purchaser to the constraints related to oil changes for the rear drive axle further to the addition of four-wheel drive capability when the terms of the specific warranty concerning the addition differ from those in the manufacturer's warranty .The seller who, because of its professional qualification, is aware of a fact which he knows to be of decisive importance to the buyer, must also inform the latter of this fact . Thus, the tour operator who, at the time of signature of the contract, fails to inform his customer of the presence of crocodiles in the lagoon, but who, on his arrival, has him sign a disclaimer of liability, breaches his obligation to provide information . In addition, the professional or personal competencies of the traveler do not exempt the tour operator from its obligation to provide information on the dangers that an excursion may present .

The seller must inform the buyer of both the conditions and restrictions on the use of the property sold . The professional seller of a filtration device must specify that it must be fixed upstream of the installation to be filtered  and the manufacturer-seller of a roasting unit must inform the lay buyer of the need to connect the unit to a device that evacuates hot air and smoke . According to the Court of Cassation, the characteristics of a product, even apparent, do not exempt the manufacturer from the obligation to provide the user with instructions for use .

The seller must inform the purchaser of the precautions for use of the thing sold by providing him with all the information enabling him to use it in accordance with its intended purpose . The seller of a stove must in particular draw the user's attention to the need to clean it every two weeks . Similarly, the manufacturer, who delivers equipment in spare parts to a layman, must provide him with all information relating to the technical constraints and precautions to be taken for the installation . The seller-installer must inform the buyer of all the conditions necessary for the normal operation of the equipment sold, and in particular the electricity supply it requires . The seller of computer equipment must, where appropriate, inform the buyer of the need to purchase, as a supplement, a maintenance contract, and to buy software updates each year . Although he is not required to change the belt drive of the vehicle sold himself, the second-hand car dealer is required to inform the buyer of the need to change it, taking the manufacturer's recommendations into account, when it is very worn on the date of the sale . When the professional seller has failed to provide any economic and mechanical information on the nature of the intervention to be carried out on the vehicle purchased, this failure is only wrongful if the cost of the work is disproportionate to the value of the vehicle . However, the seller, who is presumed to know the defects of the thing, breaches its obligation to provide information if it does not draw the attention of the buyer of a used vehicle to the various accidents it has suffered and the temporary repairs it has undergone .

  Cass. 1re civ., 15 May 2002, LawLex200500005850JBJ; Cass. com., 26 March 2025, LawLex202500002217JBJ.

 Cass. 1re civ., 23 April 1985, LawLex200500005936JBJ.

  CA Aix-en-Provence, 26 June 2006, LawLex200700000760JBJ.

  CA Besançon, 10 June 1994, LawLex200500010140JBJ.

  CA Paris, 21 March 2002, LawLex200500006958JBJ.

  CA Pau, 3 June 2008, LawLex200800001435JBJ.

 Cass. com., 19 December 2006, LawLex200800001445JBJ: for having failed to establish that its information leaflet contained the information that it was essential for the purchaser to purchase a maintenance contract and to annually purchase data to update the installation, the seller of “high-tech” computer hardware breached its information obligation.

  CA Douai, 22 March 2004, LawLex200800001511JBJ.

  CA Bordeaux, 25 April 2013, LawLex201400000461JBJ.

  CA Amiens, 9 June 2005, LawLex200800001515JBJ.

 CA Amiens, 13 December 2016, LawLex201700000006JBJ: considering that a lessor of automobiles meets its obligation of information and advice in respect of the lay consumer regarding the insurance contracts proposed by providing the documents (lease, general terms and conditions of sale and addendum to the contract) which clearly specify the limits of the guarantee underwritten and the possibility to be freed from those limits by taking out a more comprehensive warranty.

 CA Versailles, 7 March 1996, LawLex200600000738JBJ; CA Grenoble, 16 October 2018, LawLex201800001563JBJ: the manufacturer is obliged to deliver all the information relative to the product that it sells while the installer, a specialist in the same field, is obliged to refer to the instructions, and if he has not received them, to obtain them, so that the latter incurs liability when he carries out an installation that does not comply with the needs that could be expected by users, since he ought to be knowledgeable about the functioning of the installation that he recommended.

 CA Angers, 16 January 2018, LawLex201800000124JBJ.

CA Versailles, 14 November 2019, LawLex201900001408JBJ: the professional seller who did not inform the lay purchaser of a show horse that the horse had recently been subject to colic, nor that it had undergone two surgical procedures in connection with this condition, fails to communicate at the time of the sale, a decisive piece of information relating to the state of health of the animal, taking into account the risks of recurrence of the colic episodes, their very recent nature and the high level of sporting activity for which the horse was intended.

  CA  Paris, 24 May 2013, LawLex201300000855JBJ.

  Cass. 1re civ., 28 September 2016, LawLex201600001659JBJ.

  CA Douai, 13 December 2004, LawLex200800001512JBJ.

 Cass. com., 21 October 1997, LawLex200500006094JBJ.

French Consumer Law

386. Obligation to provide information

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386. Obligation to provide information

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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