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Founded in 2012, Signature Litigation has grown into one of London’s pre-eminent specialist dispute resolution practices. From the outset, we set out to do things differently: a conflict-free, disputes-only platform designed to give clients the undivided focus and strategic agility that complex, high-stakes matters demand.
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Established in 2017, Signature Litigation's Gibraltar office was founded to address growing demand for specialist expertise in commercial litigation and private wealth disputes on the Rock.
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Signature Litigation AARPI houses one of France’s most enviable product liability practices, with the team also handling commercial and corporate litigation, insurance and reinsurance, toxic tort and ESG, civil fraud and asset tracing, international arbitration, administrative and public law.
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Frankfurt has emerged as one of Europe's foremost financial and commercial centres and, increasingly, as a bridge between European and Asian markets. With that growth comes an increasing demand for sophisticated dispute resolution. Signature Litigation established its Frankfurt office to meet this need, bringing our conflict-free, disputes-only platform to the German market.
FIND OUT MORECounsel Mathilde Gérot comments on a recent case in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the probability of GDPR fees and legal cases to increase, as the judgment opens doors to compliance failings such as AML/CFT. Mathilde's comments were published in Compliance Week, 16 January 2025, and can be found here.
"The risk of non-compliance with GDPR is not so much related to the fines that can be imposed by the supervisory authorities but rather, as you rightfully mentioned, on the reputational impact it can have and the claims for unfair competition that can follow. Regarding the latter, it has been recently confirmed by a preliminary ruling issued by the European Court of Justice (C-21/23) that breaches of the GDPR provisions can give rise to claims for unfair competition.
"This is interesting to note that this confirms a broader trend, at least in France but also EU-wide I think, whereby competitors can enforce not only regulatory obligations but also more general compliance obligations based on unfair competition. Indeed, in 2023, the French Supreme Court had already ruled that a company could bring a claim for unfair competition against its competitor for non-compliance with its obligations regarding the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing (Cour de cassation, Chambre commerciale, 27 September 2023, n° 21-21.995). Similarly, the Paris first instance court had already ruled in 2022 that a failure to comply with the GDPR necessarily constitutes an act of unfair competition to the detriment of competitors (Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, 15 April 2022, n° 19/12628).
"This is likely to apply to other compliance obligations (duty of vigilance, AI act or CSRD) which require companies to implement costly compliance programs.
"Claims for unfair competition thus appear to be a means of pressure that companies can use to hold their competitors to account for their compliance obligations. This trend confirms the importance, for every economic operator, of deploying an ambitious compliance program to protect themselves from lawsuits that may be brought by sector regulators, but also by competitors who feel they are competing unfairly."
