The Court of Cassation upheld the Paris Court of Appeal's rejection of the plaintiff's claim, on the grounds that the latter had intensively disseminated for years information on other elements characterizing its offer (warranty, after-sales service, hotline, returns, free home delivery) the consumer being therefore capable of objectively determining the differences between the offers without needing precise information on the criteria for determining the price.
The Court of Cassation also upheld the ruling of the Paris Court of Appeal's rejection of the plaintiff's claim based on the facts that:
• the advertising was limited to specific products and did not claim that the defendant's prices were generally lower,
• the means of dissemination of the advertisements (written press) allowed the average consumer who has the time to read their content and understand that the prices were part of a promotional offer limited in time even if such information was written in small characters,
• nothing required that the defendant justify that the advertised prices were already applied at the date of the price survey carried out within the plaintiff's stores.
• although establishing the characteristics of the competitor's product, plaintiff did not prove how its own product is different.
However the Court of Cassation overturned the ruling of the Court of Appeal in-so-far as it considered that the difference between the advertised prices and the prices actually applied did not impact the consumer's behavior.