Autorité de la concurrence
The main sources of law of its action are the Commercial Code (Book IV) and Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
His powers have been gradually extended, including the law of 15 March 2001 on new economic regulations (NRE Act) to meet the control objective of the proper competitive functioning of the market.
In the early 1950s, in an economic context and directed nationalized since the Great Depression 2, as well as agreements with professional way since the Second World War with the Vichy regime and the German planning of the French economy the government attention focuses on anti-competitive practices.
The persistence of corporatist practices, after the Vichy regime, helping to change the vision of the government on the effects of horizontal agreements between competitors 3.
Asked for an opinion, to inform parliamentary debates 5, the Economic Council (forerunner of the present EESC) rejects the draft Henri Teitgen, due to the exorbitant powers of its specialized jurisdiction of the project and in the absence of judicial redress against its decisions.
53-611 of 11 July 1953 empowers the government to take measures "to maintain or restore a free industrial and commercial competition" 6, according to the practice of decree laws in force under the Fourth Republic.
As part of the policy of "economic and financial recovery" conducted by the Government of Joseph Laniel, was adopted on the basis of the aforementioned law decree No.
Law n ° 63-628 of 2 July 1963 supplementary budget for 1963 extends the jurisdiction of the Technical Commission of the agreements with the dominant positions of practices characterized by "a monopoly or a manifest concentration of economic power, when these activities the object or may have the effect of impeding the normal operation of the market " (Article 3) 10 .
Following the first oil crisis in 1973, which deeply undermines the planning approach adopted in France since the Liberation, the second government of Raymond Barre progressively reduced price controls.
The ordinance establishes the Competition Council consisting of sixteen members, appointed for a term of six years on a proposal of the Minister of Economy.
The law ratifying the order of December 1, 1986 provided for the transfer of contentious decisions of the Competition Council to the judicial judge, notwithstanding the traditional jurisprudential criteria that would have involved the jurisdiction of administrative courts.
This reform helps to bring the French model of regulation of competition from that in force in other states in Europe, entrusting to an independent authority specialized control of these operations 23.
The current president of the Authority Bruno Lasserre, state councilor and vice-presidents are Claire Favre, Elisabeth Flüry-Herard, Emmanuel Combe and Thierry Dahan 30.
The Competition Authority is mainly responsible for repressing anti-competitive business practices, including agreements and abuse of dominant position .
Section 11 of the Ordinance of 1 st December 1986 provided for the right to self-referral to the Competition Authority, transposed provision in Article L. 462-5 of the Commercial Code.
2015-489 QPC), the Constitutional Council ruled that the decision of the Competition Authority self-grabs, "decision which the Council exercises its supervisory role of well functioning markets, has neither the purpose nor the effect of a practice charge with a particular undertaking " ; therefore, it does not lead to prejudge actual practices that may give rise to sanctions pronounced 43 .
2015-510 QPC), the Constitutional Council considers that by providing maximum financial penalty in absolute value when the person who committed the offense is not a business, then this maximum is set as a percentage of revenue when that person is a company, the legislator has introduced a difference of treatment directly related to the object of the law establishing it, and that he referred to specific legal categories for determining the penalty with sufficient certainty.
Moreover, the Competition Authority may decide that the decision, in full or in excerpt will be published, distributed or displayed, the cost then being borne by the person concerned.
This is to allow the European Commission to focus on large-scale operations, and use the capacities of national competition authorities, often better placed to hear an anti-competitive practice.
