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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 MOREPartners Sylvie Gallage-Alwis and Thomas Rouhette examine the product safety legal framework, product safety litigation, recent policy changes in France and key developments in the Greenwashing space. This chapter was originally published in the Chambers and Partners 2022 Guide to Product Liability & Safety on 23 June 2022.
An extract of Signature's contribution may be found below and the full chapter can be found here.
Product Liability & Safety 2022: France
Product Safety Legal Framework
The main laws and regulations of the product safety legal regime in France are as follows.
Regulatory Authorities for Product Safety
Authorities
In France, the authority that regulates the largest number of products, including some food products, is the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes or DGCCRF).
Besides the DGCCRF, there are other several regulators for product safety issues depending on the industry or the type of product at stake.
For instance, for food products of animal origin, the competent authority is the Directorate General for Food (Direction Générale de l’Alimentation or DGAL). The DGAL is only competent for food products of animal origin. All other food products fall under the jurisdiction of the DGCCRF.
The competent authority for safety issues relating to vehicles is the Directorate General for Energy and Climate (Direction Générale de l’Energie et du Climat or DGEC).
The French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products Safety (Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament et des Produits de Santé or ANSM) controls and regulates health products.
Powers
The authorities perform regular investigations and controls. They monitor the products placed on the market and their conclusions are sent to the competent ministry, which can order appropriate measures if and when necessary. These authorities have been granted increasing powers, in particular the DGCCRF (since the Hamon Law of 17 March 2014), which, notably, can:
Other more emblematic powers are the ability to seize products (Article L. 512-51 of the French Consumer Code) and to use a fake identity to conduct its investigation (Article L. 512-16 of the French Consumer Code). Most importantly, French authorities can decide to sanction producers through administrative fines in exchange for not referring the case to the Public Prosecutor (who may decide to refer the case to a criminal court). Indeed, it is notable that in France most non-conformities with consumer law result in criminal liability.
