GIFAM successfully defends against French Competition Authority investigation

Client(s) GIFAM

Jones Day successfully defended Groupement Interprofessionnel des Fabricants d'Appareils d'Equipement Ménager (GIFAM), the French trade association representing the household appliance sector, in an investigation by the French Competition Authority. GIFAM was accused of having set up an anticompetitive information exchange system among its members. Following dawn raids and ten years of proceedings in what (according to the French Competition Authority’s Investigative Services) led to the constitution of the largest administrative file in its history, GIFAM and 14 manufacturers received a statement of objections. GIFAM and several appliance producers did not settle and proceeded to the hearing before the French Competition Authority, which found that the infringement was not established as the Investigative Services had failed to prove that the exchange had any anticompetitive effects (even potential).