Retail and mass distribution
Annual negotiations, logistics penalties, competition from platforms that sell without complying with the common rules: distribution and retail operate under constant pressure from the balance of power.
The firm has genuine experience in supply-chain litigation, which is rare in France and informs our entire practice in the sector.
The same balance of power runs through physical distribution networks: franchisors and network heads face the same digital intermediaries with contracts designed for another world (a platform that unilaterally changes its terms and conditions, a franchisee that stops paying royalties while keeping the brand, a parallel distributor flooding the marketplaces).
The strength of a network is measured by the litigation that tests it: we draft contracts knowing the disputes they will have to withstand, and we argue disputes knowing the contracts that made them possible.
Your experience
An annual commercial negotiation that turns into a power struggle, a logistics penalty imposed rather than discussed: retail lives under pressure from partners who no longer need to persuade in order to impose.
A network is built over years and weakened by a single badly drafted contract: an end-of-contract clause that is too lax, a parallel distributor that no contract prevents from flooding the market.
Our expertise
We draft distribution contracts already knowing the disputes they will have to withstand (franchise, dealership, selective distribution), because a contract that has not anticipated its own termination protects no one.
Faced with players who circumvent the rules on a large scale, an individual response is no longer enough: we know how to coordinate collective actions, and how to negotiate the leases of a store portfolio as a whole rather than shop by shop.
We also advise on the compliance of commercial practices (supplier relations, the Égalim law, resale at a loss) before an investigation by the DGCCRF (French competition, consumer affairs and fraud control authority) is opened, and we secure acquisitions of points of sale or store portfolios when a network consolidates.
Who, between the retailer, the platform and the algorithm, still decides on the sale? Agentic commerce will soon have machines negotiating with each other before the buyer even knows it. Transaction data and loyalty data will become assets disputed between manufacturers, retailers and platforms. As for the current asymmetry of rules with non-European sellers, it will be closed through customs and supply-chain litigation, the ground where value will tomorrow go to those who structured it first.
