Renewal of the Board Members of the Autorité

The Board Members of the Autorité de la concurrence have been significantly renewed by a decree of the President of the French Republic

The Board Members of the Autorité de la concurrence have been partly renewed by a decree of the President of the French Republic based on a proposal by the Minister for the Economy and Finance (Link to the decree of 18 March 2019 published in the Official Journal of 19 March 2019).

First renewal of the Board Members post-law of 20 January 2017 regarding the general statute of Independent Administrative Authorities

It is the first Board renewal since the enactment of the Law n° 2017-55 of 20 January 2017 regarding the general statute of independent administrative authorities and of independent public authorities, which states that the board will now be renewed by half every two years and a half (except for its president).     
Members who have just been appointed will therefore exercise, for five of them, mandates of two and a half years and for six of them, mandates of five years. The terms of this renewal are set out by the decree n° 2019-169 of 6 March 2019.

Furthermore, is it the first time that the provisions of the Ordinance of 31 July 2015 will be implemented, stipulating a strict equal representation of women and men both for the judges, and the qualified personalities from the economic sector (For the record, the Board consisted of 6 men and 11 women until now).

> Consult the decree n° 2019-169 of 6 March 2019 regarding the terms and conditions of the Board Members of the Autorité's renewal(In French)

Appointed Board Members

In accordance with the provisions of article L 461-1 of the French Commercial Code (Code de Commerce), the Board, which has equal representation of women and men, should include 6 members or former members of the French Administrative Supreme Court (Conseil d'Etat), French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation), Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) or other judiciary or administrative courts and 10 qualified personalities from the economic sector. Four Vice-Presidents are appointed among the Board Members, including two from the qualified personalities from the economic sector.

Pursuant to the decree of 18 March 2019 appointing the Board Members of the Autorité de la concurrence:

Appointed as Vice-Presidents:
-Irène Luc, until then President of chamber at the Paris Court of Appeal (Cour d'Appel de Paris)
-Henri Piffaut, until then Adviser to Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition.

They succeed Elisabeth Flüry-Herard and Thierry Dahan, whose mandates have come to term and join Isabelle de Silva (President) as well as Fabienne Siredey-Garnier and Emmanuel Combe (Vice-Presidents).

Appointed as members:
-Savinien Grignon-Dumoulin, Deputy Public Prosecutor at the French Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation)
-Christophe Strassel, Senior judge at the Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes)
-Catherine Prieto, Professor of Law
-Jean-Yves Mano, President of the Confederation for consumer protection, housing and quality of life (CLCV)
-Jérôme Pouyet, Associate professor at ESSEC Business School
-Valérie Bros, General Secretary of the Plastic Omnium company
-Laurence Borrel-Prat, Lawyer
-Alexandre Menais, General Secretary and Executive Vice President of ATOS

Renewed as members:
-Séverine Larère
-Marie-Laure Sauty de Chalon
-Sandra Lagumina

They join Fabien Raynaud whose mandate has not come to term yet.

The new members will join Isabelle de Silva, President, Fabienne Siredey-Garnier and Emmanuel Combe, Vice-Presidents and Fabien Raynaud, Member, whose mandates have not come to term yet.

Isabelle de Silva welcomed these appointments and stated: « The diversity of profiles and experience will be very useful and will contribute to nurture the debates and find into the discussions carried out by the Autorité ».

The Autorité warmly thanks all members whose mandates have come to term, in particular the two Vice-Presidents, Thierry Dahan and Elisabeth Flüry-Hérard, as well as Chantal Chomel, Philippe Choné, Noël Diricq, Laurence Idot, Reine-Claude Mader, Olivier d'Ormesson, Pierrette Pinot and Carol Xueref. Their contributions to the Autorité's missions, their dedication and the quality of their opinions have been substantial and played an important role in the achievements of the Autorité. 

Biographical information on the new members 

Irène Luc has been Deputy Prosecutor at the Central Administration of the Department of Justice within the Directorate of Criminal Affairs and Pardons (Direction des affaires criminelles), head of the Legal service at the Autorité, after successively being a case Officer, officer responsible for European affairs and General Rapporteur within the former Conseil de la concurrence. She is now President of the 5-4 Chambers at the Paris Court of Appeal, specialized in competition and retailing.

Henri Piffaut has been working in the European competition policy field for 25 years, notably in the health and digital sectors and particularly as Head of the antitrust unit in charge of pharmaceutical and health sectors as well as Head of the mergers unit in the energy, telecoms, digital and media sectors.  He was appointed fellow at the Center of International Affairs of Harvard University, where he pursued research on the interaction of competition policy and platform industries. He was until today, in charge of the expert mission appointed by the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, to advise her on the digital economy, and is an adviser to Cecilio Madero, Deputy Director for Mergers at the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission.

Christophe Strassel started his career at the Court of Auditors (Cour des comptes) in 1998 as a Public Auditeur, until 2001. After having accomplished missions abroad and held the position of financial adviser at the Permanent Representation to the European Union, he returned to the Cour des comptes in 2005. He was Chief of Staff to the State Secretary in charge of Higher Education and Research, Geneviève Fioraso, from April 2014 to June 2015, he then became Thierry Mandon's Chief of Staff, successor to Genevieve Fioraso from June 2015 to May 2017. He is now Senior judge at the Court of Auditors. 

Savinien Grignon-Dumoulin was a case Officer at the Conseil de la concurrence from 1997 to 2001, and was then judge of the 2nd chamber at the French Supreme court (Cour de cassation) from 2001 to 2011. After being first Vice President and Deputy at the Paris general court of first instance, he has been, since 2015, general counsel at the French Supreme court. Furthermore, he has been a Hearing Advisor at the Autorité since 2014 and an Ethics advisor/officer at the Autorité since 2017.
 

Jérôme Pouyet is a first class Research fellow at the University of Cergy-Pontoise, at the CNRS and associate professor at ESSEC Business School. He wrote his PhD at the Université Toulouse 1. His works mostly focuses on industrial economy and competition policy, market organization and allocation mechanisms, the analysis of industrial competitiveness, notably the network and digital industries.

Catherine Prieto is a Professor of Law at the Ecole de droit de la Sorbonne, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and a member of the Institut de Recherche Juridique of the Sorbonne. She lectures in competition law and European commercial law. She is the co-author of many books and articles on European competition law, EU single market law, and European contract law. She co-edits the quarterly Review of European Law (Dalloz).

Jean-Yves Mano is a member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) as a qualified individuals chosen for their expertise (personnalité associée) since 2014. A counsellor of Paris from 1995 to 2014, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of housing from 2001 to 2014, Jean-Yves Mano was senator of the city of Paris from 2001 to 2004. He has been now President of the consumer, housing, and quality of life organization CLCV since November 2016.

Valérie Bros held different positions within the Direction générale du trésor et du ministère des affaires étrangères (the French Treasury and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs) from 1996 on. An advisor to the French Minister for Finance and then to the Minister for Foreign Affairs between 2002 and 2006, she then was responsible for Economic and Financial affairs within the French Permanent Representation to the EU, she was among other duties in charge of competition issues. From 2010 to 2014, she was a judge at the French Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes), and joined the EDF group in 2014 first as a senior Executive and BU Director at Enedis in charge of concessions and mobility, and then as senior Director in the General Secretariat of EDF. She has recently been appointed General Secretary of the Plastic Omnium company.

Laurence Borrel-Prat, a lawyer registered with the Paris bar since 2000, Laurence Borrel-Prat worked for ten years at Gide Loyrette Nouel in the economic and European law department, where she gained experience in competition law, distribution law and commercial litigation. Then, she headed the legal department of the Spanish luxury group PUIG (Nina Ricci, Paco Rabanne, Carolina Herrera, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Prada…) in France for two years before setting up her own law office in 2008. Laurence is a member of the Board of the Association of Lawyers Practicing Competition Law (Association des Avocats Pratiquant le Droit de la Concurrence - APDC).

Alexandre Menais, after starting his career in a lawyer's office, Alexandre Menais was in charge of new information and communication technology law within the IT holding of the Crédit Mutuel-CIC group and then joined Lovells (HoganLovells) in 2000 in Paris and London. In 2003, he became Head of Legal at Xerox in France before, in 2006, joining eBay France (eBay, Paypal and Skype) as General Counsel. He then was promoted Legal Director for eBay in Europe. In November 2009, he became Head of Legal France and BeNeLux at Accenture. In September 2011, he joined ATOS of which he is the General Secretary and Executive Vice President, in charge notably of the Mergers and Acquisitions and Legal, compliance and Contract Management.

> For more information on the Board of the Autorité

> For more information on the Autorité's missions, visit our website
 

Reminder: 
The Autorité de la concurrence, which just celebrated its ten-year anniversary, is an independent administrative public authority which aims to maintain the proper function of competition in the markets.
Its Board is composed of 17 members:
- 5 permanent members: one President and 4 Vice-Presidents
- 12 non-permanent members

The Autorité is charged with four main missions: 

- Detect and sanction anticompetitive practices (anticompetitive agreements, abuse of dominant position);
- Merger control (takeovers, mergers and acquisitions);
- Public recommendations - through opinions- in order to improve the functioning of the markets.
- Regulation of legal professions

Press contacts: 
Bertille Gauthier +33 1 55 04 00 39 / Email
Chloé Duretête + 33 1 55 04 01 20 /Email