Anticompetitive practices

A software company accused one of its former employees and shareholders of having set up a competitor company that would engage in anti-competitive behaviour against it (poaching, parasitism, denigration, disorganisation and counterfeiting of its software).

The company did not have sufficient evidence to definitively characterize the anti-competitive acts in legal proceedings.

Faced with this situation, our team carried out a civil search of the competitor’s premises, on the basis of article 145 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, in order to seize written documents and computer files that would make it possible to establish that the alleged acts had been committed and to initiate proceedings before the competent courts.

On the basis of this evidence, the firm then brought an action on the merits against the competitor company before the relevant Commercial Court to require it to :

– immediately cease all anti-competitive practices against our client under penalty of payment of a certain sum of money for each day of delay;

– compensate our client for the material damage resulting from the loss of customers and market share;

– compensate our client for non-material damage.

The firm also held the founder of the competitor personally liable for breaches of his non-compete clause.

In order to characterize the financial damages suffered by its client, the firm called in a financial consultant firm who carried out a study of the market in which the type of software operated by the two competing companies was sold.