For the purpose of distributing the goods entrusted to it for sale, a real estate agent company uses the services of a commercial agent, by contract concluded in 2015. The principal having unilaterally terminated the contract in 2020, the agent, who had found clearly similar employment immediately after this termination, sued her for payment of the indemnity provided for in Article L. 134-12 of the Commercial Code.
The Court of Appeal upheld his claim, while limiting the amount of the compensation to €10,000, on the grounds that the contract did not include any non-competition clause and that the agent, having immediately found a job in the same sector, did not provide proof of the amount of commissions received in his new job.
The Court of Cassation considers that “in the event of his relations with the principal, the commercial agent is entitled to compensatory damages for the harm suffered. It follows that the termination of the commercial agency contract gives entitlement to compensation for the harm resulting, for the commercial agent, from the loss for the future of income derived from the exploitation of the joint clientele. It is therefore not necessary, for the purposes of assessing this damage, to take into account circumstances subsequent to the termination of the contract, such as the agent entering into a new contract with a view to canvassing the same clientele for another principal. By making the amount of the compensation dependent on any income derived from the exploitation of the same clientele after the termination of the agency contract, while the damage suffered by the agent is “consisting of the loss for the future of the income derived from the exploitation of the common clientele, the court of appeal did not give a legal basis for its decision.
Link to the decision of the French Court of Cassation: Cass. com., January 29, 2025, No. 23-21.527
Frédéric Fournier, IDI Country Expert for agency in France.
