The Court of Cassation rules on the applicability of Article L. 341-2 of the Commercial Code to non-reaffiliation clauses in contracts concluded before its entry into force.
Extract
[...] Consequently, the company Aulnoy Lavage sued Hypromat for the sudden termination of a commercial relationship established to repair its damages, invoking the nullity of the clause prohibiting the use of blue and white colors without a time limit for former franchisees. The Jeumont Lavage company intervened voluntarily in the proceedings to obtain the reimbursement of various sums. The Court of Appeal of Douai in a judgment rendered on 1er In July 2020, Aulnoy welcomed the company's request. It deemed the non-reaffiliation clause unwritten and condemned the Hypromat company to return to the Jeumont company the sums of 3000 euros and 5000 euros and to pay 800 euros in damages for unnecessary work. [...]
[...] The legislator considered that the interests of the employee, taken into account by this law relating to social public order, should prevail over the fact that these new provisions had not been foreseen by the contracts. However, it is still necessary to specify the scope of such a declaration: the new law then only regulates the future effects of the contracts. The effects already produced are definitively settled by the old law. Even if the legislator does not impose it on the parties, they can agree to apply the new law to their relationships. In this case, it is not really a matter of applying the new law to ongoing contracts. [...]
[...] The Court of Cassation responds negatively and quashes the judgment of the Court of Appeal of Douai, stating that the said law 'cannot, unless express retroactivity is stipulated by the legislator, which is non-existent in this case, call into question the validity of a contractual clause governed by the provisions in force at the date on which the contract was concluded'. As a result, the clause of the franchise contracts concluded between the company Hypromat France and the companies Aulnoy washing and Jeumont washing, obliging the franchisee to no longer use the colors blue and white and to repaint his center in other colors, is deemed unwritten. [...]
[...] Knowing that the 2015 legislation only provides that this new article applies at the expiration of a one-year period from the promulgation of the law, without express mention of retroactivity on the validity of contracts concluded prior to its entry into force. According to him, by deeming unwritten article 14 of the franchise contracts, the Court of Appeal has violated article 31 of the law of 6 August 2016, article 2 of the Civil Code and article L. 341-2 of the Commercial Code. The question of law posed to the Court of Cassation is therefore as follows: Is a non-reaffiliation clause deemed unwritten in application of article L. [...]
[...] II- The influence of the new law on situations formed before its entry into force (scope of the solution) One can first wonder what is the influence of the solution given here on legal situations On the other hand, one can search if, even in contractual matters, the new law cannot apply to ongoing contracts The immediate application of the new law in legal matters The scope of the decision is assessed from the question posed to the Court of Cassation. It is seized of the immediate application of a law in contractual matters. In other situations, said situations of legal origin, there is no reason not to apply the new law immediately, considered a priori as better than the previous one since it has been adopted. In fact, the situation of the parties does not depend on what they have agreed to in a contract. [...]
