The conflict has been between Bercy and Leclerc, through its Eurelec power plant, for several years. After initially being dealt with by a French court, the matter was referred to the Court of Justice of the European Communities. The Minister of Economy accuses the plant established in Belgium of “restrictive practices of competition against French suppliers”. He wants the French courts to manage this file, but in a ruling published this Thursday, the European Court of Justice considers that it is the law of the country that hosts the purchasing center, in this case the more lenient Belgian law, which is apply.
“It is a crushing defeat for the French authorities and a victory for Leclerc, through Eurelec,” said Boris Ruy, a lawyer specializing in economic law at Fidal. He specifies: “It is a victory for Eurelec to escape the contracts concluded with suppliers with the competence and control of the French judge”.
“A victory for all power plants based abroad”
The contracts signed between Eurelec and its suppliers in Belgium are governed by Belgian law. In a context of increasingly tense trade negotiations, and while French law promulgates stricter rules than elsewhere -such as the Egalim law, which imposes in particular the non-negotiability of the price of agricultural raw materials-, anger is growing among industrialists and deputies. A bill was also introduced last month. Its authors accuse certain distributors of “legal evasion”.
For the lawyer Boris Ruy, the decision published this Thursday by the Court of Justice of the European Union also sounds like “a victory for all these purchasing centers based abroad.” They are emerging more and more, in Belgium, therefore, but also in Spain or Switzerland. And for the moment, in any case, the opponents of these centrals do not seem to have much room for manoeuvre.
Source: BFM TV
