Final court ruling and hefty penalty in the case brought by Morvilliers Sentenac against
the traditional manufacturers of Laguiole knives and pure player.
In three rulings on 13 February 2025, the Court of Cassation upheld heavy penalties against the latter for continuing misleading commercial practices, despite clear injunctions to cease.
The dispute concerned the use by a pure player, on its website Laguiole Attitude, of phrases such as “official Laguiole shop” or “official Laguiole website”, which were likely to mislead consumers as to the origin or quality of the products offered. These references had been outlawed by a ruling of the Rodez Commercial Court on 2 May 2017, confirmed by the Montpellier Court of Appeal, which had accompanied the prohibition with penalties.
Despite these decisions, the pure player had continued its practices in a slightly modified form, attempting to circumvent the prohibition decision. These cavalier actions go on to justify several penalty payment proceedings, resulting in penalty payments amounting to €1,236,000 for the Syndicate and €92,000 each for Forge de Laguiole and La Coutellerie de Laguiole.
On appeal, the Court of Cassation rejected the pure player claims and pointed out that while the enforcement judge cannot modify the operative part of the initial decision, it is incumbent upon the judge to clarify its meaning and assess the scope of the obligation. It thus upheld the position of the trial judges, that the use of wording similar to that expressly prohibited fell within the scope of the same general prohibition.
Regarding the amounts of the penalties imposed, although the pure player raised the issue of their possible disproportionate nature in the Court of Cassation, this argument had not been clearly raised on appeal. Consequently, the Court did not rule on the proportionality test, noting that such an assessment requires a prior challenge before the trial judges.
This position is simply a strict reiteration of the Court's case law, as recalled in a Judgment of 9 November 2023, which stated: that “the judge ruling on the liquidation of a provisional penalty payment must,when so requested,assess, in concrete terms, whether there is a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the amount at which he liquidates the penalty payment and the value of the dispute.". »
The rule is clear but worth repeating: no request, no proportionality review! The result is the confirmation of the settlement of a penalty payment at a record amount.
This decision confirms the strictness of the judicial framework governing commercial practices in the area of unfair competition and the deterrent effect of penalty payments in cases of prolonged non-compliance.