FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Clara Hainsdorf, Bertrand Liard, Saam Golshani and Guillaume Vitrich, White & Case LLP
1. Digital Economy 1.1 Key Challenges Digital Services and Content Regulation The liability of hosting providers, previously gov - erned by Law No 2004-575 on Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN), is now regulated by the Digital Service Act (DSA), which generally came into effect on 17 February 2024 and is directly applicable in French law. This new framework establishes harmonised due diligence obligations for providers of inter - mediary services, and gives regulators broad investigative and enforcement powers at both national and EU levels. However, the core prin - ciple of intermediary liability remains the same: hosting providers are not liable for user content unless they have actual knowledge of its illegal nature and fail to act promptly. The French Consumer Code sets out the obliga - tions that are applicable to online platforms in their relations with consumers (eg, pre-contrac - tual duty to inform). French Law No 2024-449 of 21 May 2024, known as Sécurité et Régulation de l'Espace Numérique or Security and Regulation of the Digital Space (SREN Law), aligns French legislation with EU regulations such as the Digital Service Act (DSA), the Data Governance Act (DGA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), focusing on online safety, misinformation and digital asset regulation. It affects cloud computing, interoperability and digital sovereignty. In addition, Decree No 2024- 753 completing SREN Law mandates online comparators, marketplaces and news aggre - gators to enhance transparency about ranking criteria, provider relationships, pricing and guar - antees. Sponsored content must be labelled as “Ads”.
Digital Markets Regulation Digital markets are currently mostly regulated by general competition law. The EU Regulation on platform-to-business rela - tions (P2B Regulation) was adopted in 2019 to impose transparency and fairness obligations on online intermediation services and online search engines used by business users to pro - vide goods and services to consumers. The DMA imposes a range of obligations on providers of core platform services, which are designated as “gatekeepers”. An undertaking should be identified as a gatekeeper if it fulfils three qualitative criteria: • it has a significant impact on the internal market; • it provides a “core platform service” that serves as an important gateway for business users to reach end users; and • it enjoys an entrenched and durable position in its operations, or is expected to enjoy such a position in the near future. These three criteria are presumed to be satisfied if three quantitative thresholds are met, respec - tively: • the undertaking has either an annual turno - ver above EUR7.5 billion in each of the last three financial years or market capitalisation or equivalent fair market value above EUR75 billion in the last financial year and it provides the same core platform service in at least three member states of the European Union; • the core platform service has at least 45 mil - lion monthly active end users or 10,000 active business users located or established in the EU; and
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