This book provides a wide-ranging review of the European rules relating to distribution: exclusive purchase and exclusive supply, exclusive and selective distribution, motor vehicle distribution, franchises, commercial agents.

French Distribution Law

Distributors are independent traders who contract obligations specific to them. Their liability may be incurred vis-à-vis customers on various grounds. In tort matters, distributors must answer for the harm they cause to other persons but also for the harm caused by their employees or by the goods under their supervision. The capacity as independent trader also obliges distributors to answer for a …

Personal obligations.

Distributors are independent traders who contract obligations specific to them. Their liability may be incurred vis-à-vis customers on various grounds. In tort matters, distributors must answer for the harm they cause to other persons but also for the harm caused by their employees or by the goods under their supervision. The capacity as independent trader also obliges distributors to answer for all contractual breaches. Nothing distinguishes distributors from any other reseller on those various points.

The personal relationship that the supplier may be led to establish with the distributor's customers have no effect on the latter's liability where they are the necessary consideration for the exclusivity granted . Therefore, in order for the courts to order a supplier, jointly and severally with the distributor, to repay the customer the paid deposit, they must seek “whether, by its nature, the contract between (the supplier) and its distributor allowed the purchaser to rely upon it to directly incur its liability by reason of the harm it had suffered due to the non-performance by the distributor of obligations taken out by it” . This is not the case where the supplier conceals the capacity as independent traders of its distributors and behaves as if they were its agents. The theory of apparent mandate is thus used to bind it vis-à-vis third parties . The mere fact that the distributor's documents are drafted with the supplier's letterhead  or that a commercial relationship has been engaged between the supplier and customers  is not however sufficient to established apparent mandate.

Cass. com., 21 January 1980, LawLex201000000917JBJ.

Cass. com., 23 March 1978, LawLex201000000918JBJ; 25 February 1980, LawLex201000000919JBJ.

Cass. com., 13 May 1970, LawLex201000000916JBJ; 15 January 1979.

French Distribution Law

92. Personal obligations.

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

92. Personal obligations.

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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