Perspectives Contentieuses Internationales: Issue 1 of 2025
It is an open access publication and can be freely downloaded here.
Unfair Trade Practices
The focus of the issue is on unfair trade practices in private international law. It includes the following articles.
Hakim Hadj-Aïssa (University of Versailles St Quentin), Le droit français des pratiques commerciales déloyales inter-entreprises : état des lieux et analyse critique
The purpose of this article is to present French unfair trade practices law in b2b relationships in the light of the creation of European super purchasing bodies and to discuss certain avenues for both national and European reform that have been proposed in recent months in the context of the future Egalim 4 law and a possible European Egalim.
Carmen Estevan de Quesada (University of Valencia), Le droit espagnol des pratiques commerciales déloyales inter-entreprises applicable aux centrales d’achat
This article provides an overview of Spanish unfair trade practices law and its approach to industry-trade relationships, in a context of european grouping of central purchasing bodies. It argues in favour of harmonising unfair competition law at European level.
Laurent Jacquier (French Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control Directorate), L’action de l’administration : des voies procédurales diverses pour contrer les pratiques des centrales d’achat
The DGCCRF (French Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control Directorate) monitors the practices of purchasing centers, even those established abroad, as long as their activity concerns the French market. Legal action before civil courts available to the Minister is a long and obstacle-filled path with an uncertain outcome. The DGCCRF also uses administrative sanctions to enforce economic public order.
Valérie Pironon (Nantes University), La délocalisation des centrales d’achat au prisme du droit international privé
The French Minister of the Economy has exorbitant prerogatives to preserve the effectiveness of unfair commercial practices regulation in France. With the internationalization of group purchasing organisations, the territorial limits of the exercise by the Minister of his powers of investigation, administrative sanction and legal action are questioned in the light of private international law mechanisms whose limits are in turn called into question. The Eurelec “saga” gives a core illustration of the problem. In “Egalim 3”, the French legislator expressed a strong voluntarism to keep these crucial operators of the distribution chain under the influence of French jurisdictions and laws. The effectiveness of the rules inserted to this end in article L444-1 A of the Commercial Code remains extremely fragile though. Combining positive law and prospective law, this contribution attempts to carry out a diagnosis of the questions actually raised in international litigation before drawing national and/or European perspectives of evolution.
Cyril Nourissat (University of Lyon 3), Le contentieux européen des pratiques commerciales déloyales au prisme des pratiques des centrales d’achat. Propos conclusifs
After a deep clarification of terminology and concepts, the study try to show how – due to uncertainty about the possibility of an European legislation – the national judge and the Court of Justice (through a well-understood preliminary ruling dialogue) will be in the front line to sanction the unfair trading practices of pan-European purchasing groups.
Other Articles
Estelle Gallant (University of Toulouse), Gestation pour autrui à l’étranger : les clés de son efficacité en France
Following a series of rulings handed down by the French Supreme Court (“Cour de Cassation”) at the end of 2024, the strategy of parents of intention who have had recourse to surrogate motherhood abroad to have the parent-child relation ship established by the foreign court and then to apply for the exequatur of this decision in France seems likely to prevail. While the French Supreme Court considers that such decisions are not contrary to substantive public policy, even in the absence of any biological link between the child and the mother of intention, it is now taking the position that procedural public policy requires greater control over the reasons given for foreign decisions, justified by the vulnerability of the persons in question and the dangers inherent in the practice of surrogate motherhood. Furthermore, by specifying that such a filiation decision cannot be equated to full adoption judgments, the French Supreme Court definitively places filiation decisions resulting from surrogate motherhood in the category of non-adoptive filiations and thus removes any ambiguity as to the origin of filiations established abroad.
Justice Cyril Roth (Court of Appeal of Versailles), Les significations internationales : ancillaires mais indispensables
The service of a legal document to an addressee located abroad should be straightforward. Lawyers and bailiffs cannot be blamed for their imperfect command of international service procedures, given how challenging it is today to acquire relevant information, navigate between international instruments and domestic law, and sometimes overcome administrative resistance. This ultimately compromises access to justice, the length of proceedings and the enforcement of judicial decisions. While within the European space, mechanisms of inter-State cooperation are gradually giving way to direct transmission methods, the physical forwarding of paper documents will soon become obsolete: the decisive revolution will stem from the advent of digital identity for natural and legal persons.
The issue concludes with three short reports on a conference on regional human rights courts, on criminal settlement and on the establishment in Germany of international commercial courts.