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

The courts had for a long time characterized employment contracts by the existence of a relationship of legal subordination between employee and employer . Many professionals in a situation of dependence with respect to their contracting party do not meet that criterion and may therefore not benefit from the protective status of employee. The legislator has intervened to reduce the contractual imbalance and give certain professions a social protection equal to that of employees, regardless of the nature of their contracts.

Apart from the registration of certain businesses with the general social security system (Social Security Code, Article L. 311-3) , the legislator has mainly intervened via two provisions: the Law of 21 March 1941  on the status of salaried managers and the Law of 3 July 1944 on non-salaried management of retail food businesses or consumer cooperatives . The Law of 1941, which has since been codified in Article L. 7321-2, 2º of the Labor Code, allows the branch manager who is in a state of dependence with respect to his supplier to benefit under certain conditions from the provisions of the Labor Code in particular in respect of working hours, rest breaks, vacation or social protection.

In its Green Paper entitled “Modernising labor law to meet the challenges of the 21st century” of 22 November 2006, the European Commission found however the existence of a hybrid category of workers in the “gray area” between labor law and commercial law giving rise to legal uncertainty: the traditional distinction between employee and independent self-employed person is no longer adequate in terms of the economic and social reality of work . Thus, some commentators have argued for the creation of a real status for economically dependent workers.

Cass. com., 6 July 1931: "the status as employee necessarily implies the existence of a relationship of legal subordination of the worker to the person who hires him".

In particular, non-salaried managers of cooperatives and managers of storehouses of companies with many branches or other commercial or industrial establishments (6º) and "salaried" managers in Article L. 7321-2 of the Labor Code (26º). See, for example, Cass. soc., 3 February 1988, LawLex200600000518JBJ, for a manager of petrol-station.

560. Context.