My friends at Dreyfus & associés in Paris have blogged about an important decision of the Autorité de la concurrence in a matter involving Bang & Olufsen and their selective distribution network. B&O tried to stop dealers selling online, and were (not very surprisingly) hit with a penalty of €900,000. The blog posting is here: http://blog.dreyfus.fr/2013/02/online-selling-inseparable-from-selective-distribution-bang-olufsen-heavily-penalized/. Do read it! Alternatively, you might prefer http://blog.dreyfus.fr/2013/02/la-vente-en-ligne-indissociable-de-la-distribution-selective-lourde-sanction-pour-bang-olufsen/.
Thursday 28 February 2013
Saturday 2 February 2013
Auto 24 case: final decision from French court
The Auto 24 case, which I wrote about here, came back to the French courts from its short trip to Luxembourg and on 15 January 2013 the Cour de Cassation ruled that Jaguar Land Rover France was entitled to limit the number of dealers appointed to its selective distribution network in France.
The Cour de Cassation followed the Court of Justice's ruling, rejecting Auto 24's argument that JLR's limit on the number of its distributors restricted competition. The court stated that no legislation or regulation, national or EU, requires a manufacturer to justify its decision to draw up a numerus clausus as a criterion for quantitative selection. The clause in suit expressly limited the netwok to 72 dealership contracts for 109 sites, so it constituted a specified criterion whose content could be verified - which is what the Court of Justice said was needed. The supplier's freedom to define the scope and composition of its network therefore seems to be safe.
More details from Van Bael and Bellis via Mondaq (for which you might need a free subscription) here. This piece cross-posted from the Motor Law blog.
The Cour de Cassation followed the Court of Justice's ruling, rejecting Auto 24's argument that JLR's limit on the number of its distributors restricted competition. The court stated that no legislation or regulation, national or EU, requires a manufacturer to justify its decision to draw up a numerus clausus as a criterion for quantitative selection. The clause in suit expressly limited the netwok to 72 dealership contracts for 109 sites, so it constituted a specified criterion whose content could be verified - which is what the Court of Justice said was needed. The supplier's freedom to define the scope and composition of its network therefore seems to be safe.
More details from Van Bael and Bellis via Mondaq (for which you might need a free subscription) here. This piece cross-posted from the Motor Law blog.
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