France: : Canal Plus case against BeIN Sports for unfair competition dismissed

• Autores: Amélie Blocman
• Localización: IRIS: Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory, ISSN-e 1023-8565, Nº. 7, 2014, págs. 15-16
• Idioma: francés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • On 18 June the commercial court in Nanterre delivered a judgment that had been keenly awaited in the audiovisual sector. Canal Plus, editor of the eponymous premium channel and five derivative versions, including Canal + Sports which offers its subscribers exclusive live sports events, had brought proceedings for unfair competition against BeIN Sports, the Qatari subsidiary of Al Jazeera Network, which edits two sport channels launched in France in the summer of 2012. These channels had acquired a large number of audiovisual rights in respect of sport events, particularly top-level football competitions. BeIN Sports� commercial strategy had enabled it to progress from 500 000 subscribers in 2011 to more than 1.7 million in early 2014. Canal Plus, on the basis of Article 1382 of the French Civil Code, the common law text on tort, called on the court to declare that BeIN Sports had been guilty of unfair competition by adopting irrational economic behaviour, based on the sale of subscription to its channels at an abnormally low price (11 euros per month) in relation to its particularly substantial investments, resulting in disruption of the market; it was claiming almost 300 million euros in this respect.