The Contribution To Economic Justice : What Do You Need To Know

Since 1 January 2025, twelve Commercial Courts (« Tribunaux de Commerce ») have been converted into Economic Activity Courts (« Tribunaux des Activités Économiques » abbreviated as « TAE ») on a pilot basis for four years¹, covering particularly Paris, Nanterre, Lyon and Marseille. This reform comes with a major new feature : the Contribution to Economic Justice (« Contribution pour la justice économique »), payable by the claimant upon commencement of proceedings². Beyond contributing to the funding of the French public justice service, this contribution aims to avoid deter abusive and dilatory litigation and encourage the amicable settlement of disputes.

The contribution, which concerns all proceedings (including emergency proceedings) initiated from 1 January 2025, applies to companies bringing claims before the Economic Activity Court where the total value of the claims exceeds €50,000, excluding procedural costs which are not counted towards this threshold. However, companies and individuals with less than 250 employees are exempt, like are insolvency proceedings. Failure to pay renders the claim inadmissible, a ground the judge may raise of his own motion.

For legal entities, the contribution depends on the size of the company and the amount claimed :

• Average annual turnover over the last 3 years between €50 and €1,500 million, and average annual profit over the last 3 years above €3 million : the contribution is 3% of the total value of the claims, capped at €50,000.
• Average annual turnover over the last 3 years above €1,500 million (regardless of profit) : the contribution is 5% of the total value of the claims, capped at €100,000.

On 6 March 2026, the Constitutional Council (« Conseil Constitutionnel ») upheld the validity of the Contribution to Economic Justice, while imposing an important reservation : the judge must assess in concreto if the amount of this contribution to be paid by the party ordered to support costs (generally the losing party) is proportionate to its financial situation³.

The Economic Justice Contribution has potentially a significant new financial burden on companies by discouraging the latter to bring their disputes before the Court. It therefore encourages the parties to amicably settle their disputes, emphasizing the importance of effective settlement clauses.

Companies can anticipate this potentially new burden by negotiating jurisdiction clauses with their business partners. Subject to mandatory provisions, such clauses will allow the parties to exclude the jurisdiction of an Economic Activity Court in favor of an ordinary commercial Court to avoid the payment of the Contribution to Economic Justice.

Footnotes

^{1. Art. 1 Order of 5 July 2024 on the pilot scheme for the Economic Activity Courts (« Arrêté du 5 juillet 2024 relatif à l’expérimentation du tribunal des activités économiques »).}

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