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

Article 1641 of the Civil Code distinguishes between two types of defects: those which render the thing unfit for its use and those which have the consequence of reducing this use. In this last case, the text specifies that they must be such that “the would not have acquired it, or would have given a lesser price if he had known them”. Thus, the buyer cannot enforce the seller's warranty if it is established that the defect would not have deterred him from acquiring the thing at the same price if he had known it before the sale. However, the Court of Appeal in Rouen held that disorders which, without jeopardizing the buyer's safety, affect sophisticated functions which constituted decisive criteria of his choice, were latent defects, when if he had known the fragility and lack of reliability of the equipment, he would not have acquired the vehicle in question and would have chosen another luxury vehicle or another make . Similarly, according to the Paris Court of Appeal, although the failure of the video playback system on a mobile telephone does not interfere with its main communication function, it constitutes a latent defect when the options that come with the device are decisive in terms of the buyer's choice .

On the contrary, when the defect renders the thing unfit for its intended use, it is not necessary to determine whether the ignorance of the defect was instrumental in the consent of the buyer . Not only does Article 1641 of the Civil Code not provide for this, but it is also inconceivable that the buyer would have deliberately acquired the thing if he had known that it would prove to be unusable.

 CA Rouen, 20 February 2008, LawLex201200001818JBJ.

 CA Paris, 27 May 2010, LawLex201200001901JBJ.

 Cass. com., 7 February 1995, LawLex200500003693JBJ. See also CA Agen, 5 September 2012, LawLex201300000209JBJ.

604. Decisive nature of the defective element