Securing your contracts and commercial operations

Your company signs contracts, negotiates with suppliers, operates a commercial lease and is considering the sale or acquisition of a business. Each of these operations commits your company over the long term. A contract with unclear termination conditions, a poorly calibrated non-competition clause, out-of-date general terms and conditions of sale: these are all risks that come to light at the worst possible moment, when a dispute arises.

Our firm assists businesses and retailers in drafting, negotiating and securing all their commercial transactions. We intervene upstream to structure your contractual relations, and downstream when a disagreement threatens to turn into a dispute.

Our firm handles

  • Drafting and negotiating commercial contracts: general terms and conditions, distribution contracts, franchise agreements, partnership agreements, commercial agency agreements, etc.
  • Commercial leases: negotiating clauses, renewals, setting rent, transfer of leasehold rights
  • Sale and acquisition of businesses: legal audit, drafting of deeds, completion of legal formalities
  • Competition law advice: non-competition clauses, restrictive practices, supplier-distributor relations
  • Commercial debt collection and bad debt management

Legal focus - Article L110-1 of the French Commercial Code

The law deems all purchases of movable property for resale, all manufacturing, commission and transport businesses, all foreign exchange, banking and brokerage transactions, and all obligations between traders, merchants and bankers to be commercial transactions. This founding text of commercial law delimits the scope of intervention of the Commercial Court and determines the applicable rules - five-year limitation period, freedom of proof, presumed joint and several liability of co-debtors.

Resolving your commercial disputes

A partner who does not respect the shareholders' agreement. A partner who abruptly breaks off a business relationship that has lasted for years. A competitor who disparages your products or hires your employees to gain access to your know-how. Commercial disputes take many forms, but they all have one thing in common: they directly threaten the continuity of your business.

Our firm appears before the Commercial Court and the civil courts, both as plaintiff and defendant. The stakes are not just legal: they are also strategic. We work with you to assess whether litigation is appropriate in terms of cost, time and the relationship at stake. Where appropriate, we favour negotiation or mediation. When it is necessary to litigate, we do so with determination.

Our firm handles

  • Commercial litigation before the commercial court: breach of contract, breach of contract, disputes between partners, liability of the director, etc.
  • Unfair competition and parasitism: action for injunction, investigative measures, claim for damages
  • Breach of an established commercial relationship under article L442-1 of the French Commercial Code - the notice period must take account of the duration of the relationship, with a legal ceiling of 18 months.
  • Anti-competitive practices: cartels, abuse of dominant position, proceedings before the Competition Authority
  • Commercial summary proceedings and emergency measures: precautionary seizures, provisional payment, prohibition under fine
  • Avenues of appeal: appeal, cassation appeal

Our areas of expertise in commercial law

Our firm focuses on six areas of commercial law, each of which is handled by lawyers who have mastered the technical subtleties and case law involved.

Commercial contracts

Drafting, negotiating and litigating contracts between professionals: general terms and conditions, distribution, franchising, commercial agency, partnerships.

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Commercial lease

Support for landlords and tenants: negotiation, renewal, termination, transfer of leasehold rights, rental disputes.

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Sale of a business

Legal audit, drafting of deeds, negotiation of price and guarantees, formalities for publication and opposition by creditors.

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Unfair competition

Liability action to stop and repair acts of denigration, imitation, parasitism or misappropriation of customers.

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Commercial fraud

Defending companies that have fallen victim to fraudulent practices: swindling, breach of trust, falsification of documents.

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Abuse of a dominant position

Advice and litigation on anti-competitive practices: abuse of dominance, cartels, economic dependence.

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