French efforts to protect energy company Suez from foreign ownership have sparked outrage in Brussels and Rome.

A €10 million fine against France's JCDecaux has been reduced to €2 million on appeal.

The Competition Council has ruled that there was no abuse of dominance where pharmaceutical companies refused to supply exporters. Olivier Cavézian Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Paris

Stanislas Mar tin, the competition specialist who helped rejuvenate France’s merger laws, is leaving government to join Clifford Chance. The ministry of finance released him from its service on 9 January.

French competition specialist Philippe Rincazaux has jumped ship from Coudert Brothers, joining Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP’s nascent Paris office.

France's economic woes continue, but JAMES CLASPER finds its popular competition commissioner in an optimistic mood

When Bruno Lasserre was appointed chairman of France's Conseil de la Concurrence in 2004, he found a heavy backlog of cases on his desk. JAMES CLASPER met him this summer to discuss his progress.

In France's competition scene it's important to know and be known by the right people. And, as JAMES CLASPER explains, the best French competition practices are frequently led by strong personalities with plenty of clout.

France’s Competition Council is fining a ‘dominant’ pet food company and distributors €5 million.

The first ever suspension of a merger clearance decision will have a significant impact on French merger control. One can expect the Ministry to be more careful in the future when clearing a transaction after a phase I investigation: unconditional clearances will in all likelihood be more difficult to obtain. This case will also certainly have the effect of shortening the time after which the publication of decisions takes place since the current timeline was the subject of very strong criticism from the Conseil d’Etat.

This is the first time that the Court of Appeal has increased the amount of a fine imposed by the Competition Council (although in one previous case it had imposed a fine on a company that had not been fined by the Council). The Court of Appeal’s decision has been interpreted by the Competition Council as an encouragement to tighten its fining policy.This case may also be seen as a strong disincentive for firms to appeal decisions of the Competition Council. Indeed, whereas in the past the possibility of an increase of a fine was perceived as being remote, this decision shows clearly that this risk is real. In the future, undertakings may have to weigh carefully their decision whether to bring an appeal against a negative decision adopted by the Council.

Emmanuel Combe has been made a member of the French Competition Council.

On 17 June 2004, at the prompting of the French minister of economy, Nicolas Sarkozy, the major representatives of French suppliers and distributors agreed to collectively decrease, as of September 2004, the retail prices of consumer goods by 2 per cent. This agreement lies within the framework of the current debate on the appropriateness of French rules preventing 'resale at a loss'. These rules currently limit the scope for price-cutting, and the agreement is a means of getting round these limitations to some extent. However, it raises concerns as to its compatibility with competition law, as it might amount to concerted margin-fixing. The agreement shows, in any case, the need for a thorough review of the relevant French legislation. A report recently delivered by an ad hoc commission of experts recommends that the resale at a loss rules be made more flexible.Dan RoskisFreshfields Bruckhaus DeringerParis

Dominique Brault is stepping down as competition co-head at Coudert Frères in Paris to join Herbert Smith in Paris, as a consultant.

The de minimis provisions set out by a new French ordinance essentially mirrors the provisions of the European Commission’s 2001 de minimis notice. However, contrary to the Commission notice, the ordinance does not expressly deal with networks of agreements producing a cumulative anticompetitive effect.The increase of the French individual turnover threshold to !50 million adjusts significantly the merger control thresholds set out by the 2001 Law on New Economic Regulations, which introduced compulsory notification of concentrations and entered into force in April 2002.Jacques Philippe Gunther and Olivier Cavézian Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Paris