Commentaire de l'arrêt de la Cour de cassation du 18 Novembre 1997 (Affaire Catalina)

By a decision on 18th November 1997 the supreme court set aside, on the basis of an infringement of article 1382 of the civil code, an appeal which had allowed a situation where a particular company had used, to the detriment of another company, a method know as electronic couponing and had decided that such action did not constitute the offence of unfair competition. The litigious method having thus been sanctioned, the legal analysis of what constitutes parasitical competition benefits from new case law ; this being said the conclusions to be drawn from the decision in question has to be restricted to the circumstances of the particular case and a detailed analysis of its context.