In December 2018, the French Competition Authority
("FCA") published a notice clarifying the FCA's
settlement procedure in competition cases ("Notice"). The
FCA's General Rapporteur may offer settlement to companies that
agree not to challenge the allegations made against them in the
statement of objections. The signed settlement report is sent to
the FCA Board, which either imposes a fine consistent with the
settlement report or remands the matter for further investigation.
Since first application in 2016, the FCA applied the settlement
procedure in 11 cases, approximately 14 percent of the FCA's
antitrust decisions.
The procedure applies to both anticompetitive agreement and
abuse of dominance cases. To expedite settlement, the settlement
report must be finalized within two months of the statement of
objections. This can be short because parties often prepare a
response to the statement of objections to address the risk that
the FCA terminates settlement, which it
