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 intensity of the information obligation incumbent on the manufacturer, seller or service provider with regard to the buyer depends on the personal qualities of the contracting parties. In fact, the obligation to inform, which is assessed in concreto, derives its raison d'être from an imbalance of knowledge between the seller and the buyer. When this imbalance does not exist, the objective of p …

Debtor

The intensity of the information obligation incumbent on the manufacturer, seller or service provider with regard to the buyer depends on the personal qualities of the contracting parties. In fact, the obligation to inform, which is assessed in concreto, derives its raison d'être from an imbalance of knowledge between the seller and the buyer. When this imbalance does not exist, the objective of protecting the party considered weak is eliminated. In order to determine, for each type of situation, whether there is such an imbalance, it is necessary to ascertain whether the debtor of the obligation acts as a professional or a layman.

The concept of “professional debtor” of the information obligation encompasses both the manufacturer and the importer or seller of a product, when they act in a professional capacity.

Although the information obligation has historically been established in cases involving professional sellers, it is nevertheless still presumed that the manufacturer, even before its dealers, has full control over the characteristics and properties of its products .

The information obligation has therefore been extended to it . It particularly has a duty to warn, when it places a hazardous product on the market, even it if is not new . In some cases, the manufacturer may be exempted from its obligation to provide information when the professional seller, for example because he is based locally, is in a better position to inform the sub-buyer on the ability of the product to meet his expectations . The same applies when he acts as a subcontractor of a professional seller: according to the Court of Cassation, in this case, the manufacturer is not bound by an obligation to provide information vis-à-vis the professional seller, who has the necessary expertise to assess the technical characteristics of the products delivered to him and on whom it is incumbent to take any necessary measure to properly inform the public .

The professional seller is also assumed to know the characteristics and conditions of use of the products he offers for sale. He is therefore, in principle, in a position to inform the buyer so that he can make an informed commitment . An equestrian center incurs liability by selling a Shetland pony that shortly after the sale is escaped to return to the former owner's property  when it did not notify the purchasers that it knew to be located nearby of the fact that such animals are not accustomed to solitude and can only live as part of a community . In contrast, a real estate agency does not violate its obligation to inform the buyer on the actual state of a property by not mentioning the presence of asbestos, insofar as that information is based on a a survey carried out by an authorized professional and reproduced in the notarial deed which was properly disclosed to the purchaser. On the other hand, the surveyor is bound by an obligation to inform which implies that he/she has personally verified the complete specifications of the building concerning the possible presence of asbestos, by conducting an exhaustive search and conducting audits not requiring any destructive works, and should not merely carry out a purely visual survey . Generally speaking, the seller must actively inquire with the manufacturer of the product   and cannot exempt himself from his obligation unless, contrary to the manufacturer, he was not in a position to have the information in question . The manufacturer who is unable to justify having provided an information leaflet to the professional tiler, which would have alerted the latter as to the incompatibility between its product and the ceramic tiles to be laid, and who cannot claim that their yellowing is due to the incorrect application of the product, insofar as the area of the tiled floors treated by it shows the same degradation as the rest of the surface treated by the tiler - thus demonstrating that the use of the product and not the method of application used is at the origin of the issue - is held jointly and severally liable in damages with the tiler . However, he cannot invoke his lack of experience , or the fact that he is not specialized in the sale of the products at issue when he is acting within his general area of expertise . The buyer's status as a professional has no impact on the intensity of the information obligation incumbent on the seller when it operates in a highly specialized field . The professional seller can only be released from liability if the buyer intends to make an unusual use of the thing and has not informed it: in this case, the buyer has a duty to cooperate with the seller . The Court of Cassation considers that in the absence of any binding legal provision or contractual stipulation to that effect, a water supplier neither breaches its duty of fairness in the performance of the contract nor its obligation to provide information and advice by not informing the subscriber of the existence of an abnormal water consumption reading .

Unlike the professional seller, the casual or lay seller is not presumed to have all the information on the characteristics of the property sold and is not required to inquire to be able to inform. Accordingly, his liability cannot be incurred when it is not established that he himself knew the information in question . The professional seller must therefore be assimilated to a lay seller for information which is not within his competence . It is different when the lay seller has information that he has not disclosed to the buyer, even if the buyer is a professional . In addition, according to the courts, the manager of a garage cannot lose his status as a professional, when he sells a used vehicle on a personal basis . Conversely, a seller who is a priori a layman may be classed as a professional depending on the circumstances of the sale, and in particular his experience .

  Cass. 1re civ., 29 May 2001, LawLex200800001450JBJ.

  Cass. 1re civ., 23 April 1985, LawLex200500005936JBJ, holding that the obligation to provide information lies both with the manufacturer and the specialized dealer

 CA Nîmes, 15 February 2018, LawLex201800000306JBJ.

 Cass. com., 21 October 1997, LawLex200500006094JBJ.

 Cass. 1re civ., 1 March 2005, LawLex200500004617JBJ, concerning the occasional sale of concrete by a building contractor;  CA Amiens, 15 September 2011, No LawLex201200001627JBJ, holding that a company specialized in the sale of agricultural equipment has no grounds to involve its supplier in the proceedings when it does not demonstrate or even allege that its technical expertise is less than of its supplier. 

 Cass. com., 19 December 2006, LawLex200800001445JBJ.

Cass. 1re civ., 20 June 1995, LawLex200500005883JBJ;  CA Nouméa, 14 October 2002, LawLex200800001481JBJ; CA Douai, 17 October 2024, LawLex202400008175JBJ: the duty of the IT seller to provide advice consisting of seeking a solution that is tailored to the customer's needs and warning the customer of the difficulties involved in installing and operating equipment of a certain complexity has, as a corollary, the obligation of collaboration on the part of the buyer, who must provide the information necessary to assess his needs, and in particular implement a set of specifications.

Cass. com., 13 September 2016, LawLex201800000685JBJ.

 Cass. 3e civ., 21 July 1993, LawLex200500005856JBJ.

Cass. 1re civ., 25 June 2002, LawLex200500005849JBJ, holding that the seller of a video surveillance system cannot be criticized for not informing the purchasing company of the difficulties that may arise from its installation under the rules of the Labor Code.

  Cass. 1re civ., 24 November 1976, LawLex200500006108JBJ.

   CA Paris, 9 June 2005, LawLex200800001515JBJ, concerning the sale of a used vehicle by a mechanic.

  Cass. 1re civ., 11 October 1983, LawLex200500006107JBJ.

   CA Lyon, 19 April 2011, LawLex201200000949JBJ, considering that a seller of a barge whose professional career has taken place aboard river vessels remains, despite the complete cessation of his activity, a qualified professional in the shipping industry who knows the regulations applicable to river vessels and cannot be unaware of the actual condition of the vessel.

   CA Nîmes, 14 December 2000, LawLex200800001508JBJ.

  Cass. 1re civ., 3 June 1998, LawLex200500005852JBJ. Cf.  CA Douai, 22 November 2012, LawLex201300001097JBJ, having held that although a transformer of motor vehicles cannot have its contractual partner, a manufacturer of plastic materials, assume its error in the choice of a material unsuitable for the use it intended to make of it, it should have drawn its attention and warned it, given its lack of expertise in this area, to the difference in the paint to be applied depending on the plastic material chosen, and thus failed to comply with its contractual information obligation.

  CA Grenoble, 4 May 2009, LawLex201200001958JBJ.

CA Aix-en-Provence, 7 February 2017, LawLex201700000356JBJ.

CA Dijon, 29 November 2016, LawLex201600002047JBJ; see, in the same vein: CA Rennes, 26 April 2018, LawLex20180000652JBJ: even if the applicable standard does not recommend destructive probing except in parts that are already altered or degraded, it requires the diagnostician to conduct a particularly careful search for the possible presence of wood-destroying fungi when the context of humidity or other visible characteristics of the building make it possible for him, as a professional, to suspect, with a high degree of probability, the existence of a fungal attack in non-visible parts, such that the latter incurs liability when he merely issues two identical and cursory parasite reports indicating only the absence of traces of apparent activity of the termite, wood-boring insect or dry rot type.

  CA Rouen, 27 April 1982, LawLex200500008761JBJ;  CA Versailles, 7 March 1996, LawLex200600000738JBJ.

CA Paris, 16 April 2008, LawLex200800001272JBJ, holding that the car dealer cannot be blamed for not drawing the buyer's attention to the risk of the future disappearance of a spare part, to the extent that, unlike the manufacturer, it has no control over the technical developments of the network.

French Consumer Law

390. Debtor

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390. Debtor

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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