COMMERCIAL LITIGATION
We protect our clients' interests across every aspect of their business: negotiating, performing and enforcing commercial contracts; managing the termination of established commercial relationships; protecting know-how and data against unfair competition; and safeguarding their tangible and real estate assets.
Contract life: negotiation, performance, breach, contractual liability
Our lawyers are experienced in negotiating commercial contracts, and as such, they assist clients in concluding all types of agreements: general terms and conditions of sale, supply or procurement contracts, partnership contracts, distribution contracts, agency contracts, etc.
Our combined drafting and litigation experience allows us to anticipate performance issues caused by ambiguous drafting and to assess the prospects of success in contractual disputes accurately.
Our support:
We represent clients in disputes at every stage of the contract lifecycle, across sectors (agri-food, healthcare, IT, tourism, etc.) and industries (medical devices, automotive, aerospace, rail, etc.):
- Negotiations and wrongful termination of discussions,
- Hardship (imprévision) and price renegotiation,
- Actions for specific performance,
- Complex debt recovery (taking security rights, protective/provisional measures at national, cross-border or international level, attachments (“saisies–attributions”), etc.),
- Enforcement of contractual liability arising from poor performance or non-performance of agreements,
- Anticipating and managing the consequences of the termination of established commercial relationships,
- Breach of commercial agency contracts and resulting compensation.
Unfair competition
The principles of fair dealing require businesses to be particularly careful to comply with the rules, especially where unfair competition is established or alleged – conduct that can disrupt a business through mass poaching of key employees, free-riding, misappropriation of customer data or know-how, or disparagement.
Our team has extensive experience of all types of legal action related to acts of unfair competition, whether the firm’s clients are victims or alleged perpetrators of such behaviour.
Our services:
- Summary proceedings to halt a manifestly unlawful disturbance or prevent imminent harm,
- Ex parte or summary applications to obtain evidence held by an opponent for use in proceedings on the merits (or to challenge such measures)
- Interim measures for the preservation of documents or assets (« saisies conservatoires »),
- Online reputation protection,
- Actions for damages.
Public and private works contracts
We have developed particular expertise in public and private works contracts.
We assist bidders where a tender process has breached the principle of equal treatment or where the contracting authority has not applied its own award criteria for selecting the most economically advantageous tender.
Such assistance can be provided before the judicial or administrative courts.
Our support :
- Pre-contractual interlocutory procedures to annul the tendering procedure (“référé pré-contractuel”)
- Amicable dispute resolution: drafting pre-action claims and advising on conciliation and mediation
- Applications for interim payment (référé-provision) and proceedings on the merits