Appointment of a sustainability expert

As of September 1, 2022, Elise Provost was appointed first formal head of the French Competition Authority’s (the “FCA”) sustainable development network.  Since this network is also responsible for flagging sustainability-related cases to the FCA’s General Rapporteur (i.e., the head of the FCA’s investigation unit), Elise Provost was also appointed adviser to the General Rapporteur as of September 1, 2022.

Background

On July 13, 2022, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) published an interim document for public consultation on competition in the cloud computing sector as part of a sector inquiry launched in January 2022.[1]  The FCA’s investigation seeks to delineate the relevant markets for cloud computing services, identify actors that may enjoy “particular positions”[2] on the market, and assess practices that could hinder competition on the merits in an industry projected to expand in France by 14% annually to reach €27 billion by 2025.[3]  The consultation closed on September 19, 2022, and the FCA has announced its final conclusions for early 2023.[4]