Collo vs McDo

Glossary

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A termination clause, a Form 10-K, a judicial public interest agreement, a lease-management agreement: the articles and documents of this case file rest on concepts and institutions that are not self-evident. Each one has its own entry here, linked to the places on the site where it comes up.

Legal concepts

24 entries
The franchise agreementAn independent trader operates another's brand, know-how and methods, in return for payment. French law gives no definition of it.Lease-management (location-gérance)The owner of a business leases it to a manager who operates it at his own risk. At the end of the contract, the business — and the clientele — return to the owner.The termination clauseThe clause that brings the contract to an end automatically in the event of a breach, without a judge having to order it. The judge merely records it.Contractual good faith“Agreements must be performed in good faith.” A sentence from the Civil Code of 1804, which has become the judge's main instrument for reviewing the use of contractual prerogatives.Formal notice and the order to payThe act by which a creditor demands that its debtor pay — and which starts the countdown of the termination clause.The court-ordered expert reportThe judge appoints a technical specialist to inform him on a question of fact. The expert gives an opinion; he does not decide, and the judge is not bound by his conclusions.Article 700 and costsTwo cost items that are often confused: costs (dépens) are the regulated fees of the proceedings; article 700 covers the rest — above all lawyers' fees.Compulsory liquidationThe procedure opened when the business has ceased payments and its recovery is manifestly impossible. Assets are sold, proceeds distributed, the business closed.The catchment areaThe geographical area from which a point of sale draws its customers. A commercial notion, not a legal one — and yet at the heart of franchise disputes.Know-howSecret, substantial, identified. These three adjectives, defined by European law, are the economic counterpart of the fees a franchisee pays.The appeal to the Court of Cassation and non-admissionThe Court of Cassation judges judgments, not cases. And since 2002, it can dismiss an appeal without giving reasons: this is non-admission.Article 6 § 1 — the right to a fair trialThe most frequently invoked provision of the European Convention. It guarantees an independent tribunal, a reasonable time — and, through case law, equality of arms.Revocation of a trade mark for non-useA trade mark that is not used is lost. And it is for the owner — not the applicant — to prove that it uses it.Article 101 TFEUThe European prohibition of anti-competitive agreements. It is the text that decides what a franchisor is entitled to impose on its network.The judicial public interest agreementA company pays, brings itself into compliance, and the public prosecution is extinguished — without trial, without admission of guilt, without conviction.Form 10-KThe regulatory annual report of US listed companies. It is not a brochure: it is a certified document, in which lying exposes the company to prosecution.The Sherman Act (1890)The first US antitrust law. It prohibits anti-competitive agreements and monopolisation — and, unlike European competition law, it is also a criminal law.“Per se” and “rule of reason”The two ways of analysing a restriction of competition in US law. The choice between the two most often decides the outcome of the case.The class actionA US procedure in which a few plaintiffs act on behalf of all. The decisive stage is not the judgment: it is class certification.Punitive damagesDamages that compensate nothing: they punish and deter. The US Constitution limits their amount — this is what was at stake in the scalding coffee case.CertiorariThe Supreme Court of the United States chooses its cases. Out of 7,000 to 8,000 petitions a year, it decides about 80 — and a refusal says nothing about the merits.“Passing off”A common-law tort: passing off one's goods as those of another. It protects the goodwill attached to a sign, even without a registered trade mark.QSC — quality, service, cleanlinessThree words that have become a contractual obligation. Since the 1970s, McDonald's has based the termination of its operators' contracts on failure to comply with them.“McJob”A word that entered the dictionaries to describe a low-skilled, low-paid job with no prospects. McDonald's asked for its removal; the dictionaries refused.

Institutions

12 entries
The European Court of Human RightsThe court of the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg. It does not retry the case and does not set aside any national decision: it finds a violation of the Convention.The Court of CassationThe supreme court of the ordinary courts. It rules on the law, not on the facts: it does not retry the case, it reviews the judgment.The court of appealThe second level of jurisdiction. Unlike the Court of Cassation, it retries everything: the facts and the law.The commercial courtA court composed of elected traders, not professional judges. It is the court that decides franchise disputes — and orders liquidations.The Court of Justice of the European UnionTwo courts, in Luxembourg: the Court of Justice, which interprets EU law, and the General Court, which hears actions against the institutions.The EUIPOThe European Union's trade mark office, in Alicante. It registers marks — and it can revoke them, at the request of anyone.The National Financial Prosecutor's OfficeA specialised prosecutor's office with national jurisdiction, born of the Cahuzac affair. It negotiated McDonald's France's tax settlement in 2022.The DGFiPThe French tax administration. It audits accounts, issues reassessments — and obtained 737 million euros from McDonald's France.The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)The US stock market regulator. It is with the SEC that McDonald's files each year the report in which the group itself describes its business model.The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board)The US federal agency for collective labour law. For ten years it has been unable to decide whether a franchisor is the employer of its franchisees' employees.The USPTOThe US patent and trade mark office. Its administrative tribunal, the TTAB, decides who has the right to register a sign — not who has the right to use it.The St. Louis Fed and FREDOne of the twelve regional banks of the US Federal Reserve. It hosts FRED, the most widely used free economic database in the world.

People

7 entries
Ray Kroc (1902-1984)A milkshake machine salesman, he became the McDonald brothers' franchising agent in 1955, then the owner of their name. He built the network, not the restaurant.Harry J. Sonneborn (1916-1992)The finance director who turned McDonald's into a real estate company. Without him, the network would have lived on fees alone — and would probably not have survived.Richard and Maurice McDonaldIn 1948, they designed the kitchen that would change restaurants worldwide. Thirteen years later, they sold their name and disappeared from their own story.Raymond DayanThe licensee who opened the first McDonald's in France in 1972. In 1982, a US court took away his right to use the name.Jim Cantalupo (1943-2004)The executive who, in 2003, halted the race to open new restaurants in order to revive existing ones. He died in office fifteen months later.Morgan Spurlock (1970-2024)The director of “Super Size Me”, who ate exclusively at McDonald's for thirty days in front of a camera — and sparked a debate that continues to this day.Don GorskeAn American from Wisconsin who has eaten a Big Mac a day since 1972. Guinness World Records keeps the count; McDonald's has never asked anything of him.

Companies and media

5 entries
McDonald's CorporationA company listed on the NYSE, headquartered in Chicago. About 95% of its restaurants are operated by franchisees — the group is first and foremost a landlord and a collector of fees.McDonald's FranceThe group's French subsidiary. It signs the franchise and lease-management agreements — and it was the opposing party to Bernard Collorafi.Supermac's and Pat McDonaghAn Irish chain founded in 1978 by a former schoolteacher. In 2019, it obtained the partial revocation of the “BIG MAC” trade mark in the European Union.The EconomistA British weekly founded in 1843. Since 1986 it has published the Big Mac Index, a purchasing power parity indicator that began as a joke.Guinness World RecordsA reference work born in 1955 from a pub argument. It certifies records according to written rules of evidence — which makes it, in its own way, an authority.

Economics

3 entries
Transfer pricingThe prices that companies in the same group charge one another. A brand royalty paid to a foreign subsidiary is the most common example — and the most contested.MonopsonyThe mirror image of monopoly: a single buyer facing many sellers. Applied to labour, it is the employer who can pay less than the market rate without losing its employees.Purchasing power parityThe theory that, in the long run, exchange rates should adjust so that the same basket of goods costs the same price everywhere.