Compensation for economic damage

Guidance notes - 3rd edition (2024)

18/03/2024 - mise à jour : 18/03/2024

Overview of the information sheets

How can economic damage be assessed? What calculation methods should be used? What principles should be applied? What lines of reasoning should be followed?

Practitioners very often ask these questions, whether they are judges, lawyers, corporate legal counsel, economists or chartered accountants faced with a wide range of types of economic damage which it can difficult to assess. These matters are often discussed in publications and at conferences. However, practitioners do not have enough shared operational tools to determine the amount of compensation for economic damage.

With the support of an ad hoc working group, set up in 2016 with the assistance of Professor Muriel Chagny, the Paris Court of Appeal has undertaken to improve these tools in a bid to harmonise and simplify them, as well as making them more transparent. In 2017, this innovative approach led to the publication of a collection of guidance notes on how to award compensation for economic damage.

The information sheets presented in this collection constitute the 3rd edition, which expands on, updates, enhances and replaces the previous edition. This collection based on best practice is now accompanied by a glossary.

The collection seeks to provide useful information to practitioners. As such, the sheets are composed of recommendations and do not in any way bind the authors or the institutions or organisations they represent. As in previous years, the collection may be added to over time.

The 2024 edition of this collection is the outcome of the research of the following working group members:

Brigitte Brun-Lallemand – First president of chamber in charge of the economic and commercial division of the Paris Court of Appeal
Muriel Chagny – Professor at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Paris-Saclay) & Director of the master’s degree programme in competition and contract law
Marie-Laure Dallery – President of the 5-4 chamber specialising in competition and distribution law at the Paris Court of Appeal
Fabienne Fajgenbaum – Lawyer at the Paris Bar & Chair of the open committee on intellectual property law of the Paris Bar Association
Didier Faury – Chartered Accountant, Mediator & Honorary Chair of the French National Council of Companies of Legal Experts
Natalie Fricéro – Professor at the University of Nice-Côte d’Azur, member of the French National Council for Mediation & former member of the French High Council of the Judiciary
Michel Germain – Professor Emeritus of the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas
Michel Jockey – Lawyer and Member of the Paris Bar
Gildas de Muizon – Expert at the Versailles Court of Appeal and the Paris and Versailles administrative courts of appeal
Louis Perdrix – Professor at the University of Paris-Est Créteil
Olivier Péronnet – Chartered Accountant and Financial Expert at the Paris Court of Appeal & Honorary Chair of the national company of judicial chartered accountants
Isabelle Rohart – Judge at the Paris Court of Appeal
Philippe Roussel Galle – Professor at the University of Paris Cité