Chapter II: Responsibilities.

I.-The Autorité de la concurrence must be notified, for information purposes, at least four months before its implementation, of any agreement between undertakings or groups of natural or legal persons operating, directly or indirectly, one or more retail shops for mass-market products, or operating in the distribution sector as a central referencing or purchasing body for retail undertakings, aimed at negotiating the purchase or referencing of products or the sale of services to suppliers on a group basis.

The first paragraph of this I applies where the total worldwide turnover excluding tax of all the undertakings or groups of natural or legal persons party to the agreement and the total turnover excluding tax achieved on purchases in France under the agreement by all the parties to the agreement exceed thresholds set by decree in the Conseil d'Etat.

The Autorité de la Concurrence will forward to the Minister for the Economy, at his request, the agreements referred to in the first paragraph of this I.

II. II -An assessment of competition in the implementation of an agreement as defined in the first paragraph of I will be carried out by the Autorité de la concurrence, on its own initiative or at the request of the Minister responsible for the economy. To this end, the Autorité de la concurrence may ask the parties to the agreement to send it a report on the agreement's impact on competition.

The review procedure is initiated by the Minister responsible for the economy. The initiation of the competition review procedure is made public by the Autorité de la concurrence, to allow interested third parties to submit their observations. The procedure applicable is that set out in the second paragraph of Article L. 463-2 and in Articles L. 463-4, L. 463-6 and L. 463-7. Before taking a decision, the Autorité de la concurrence may hear third parties in the absence of the parties to the agreement in question.

In order to carry out the competition assessment, the Autorité de la concurrence examines whether the agreement, as implemented, is likely to have an appreciable effect on competition within the meaning of Articles L. 420-1 and L. 420-2. In doing so, it assesses whether the agreement makes a sufficient contribution to economic progress to offset any harm to competition, taking into account its impact on producers, processors, distributors and consumers alike. If harm to competition as referred to in the third paragraph of this II or anti-competitive effects have been identified, the parties to the agreement undertake to take measures to remedy them within a period set by the Competition Authority. The Competition Authority may also refer the matter to itself pursuant to III of Article L. 462-5 or may be referred to it by the Minister for Economic Affairs pursuant to I of the same Article L. 462-5.

III. III - The Autorité de la concurrence may take precautionary measures in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the last paragraph of Article L. 464-1 for any agreement referred to in I of this Article where one of the infringements of competition referred to in II, which this agreement causes or is likely to cause immediately after its entry into force, is of sufficiently serious nature.

The precautionary measures may include an injunction to the parties to the agreement to prevent the agreement from coming into force. They may include an injunction to the parties to return to the previous situation or request that the agreement be amended.

IV. IV.-An order of the Minister in charge of the economy, issued after obtaining the opinion of the Competition Authority, sets the content of the information file sent to this authority pursuant to the first paragraph of I as well as the information and documents that must be included in the report provided for in the first paragraph of II.