Terms of sale are the document everyone copies from a competitor and nobody reads. That works right up until there is a dispute, at which point it becomes the only thing that matters.
In France, conditions générales de vente are more than a formality. For sales to consumers they are mandatory. For sales between businesses they must be provided on request, and failing to provide them carries a penalty.
When they are compulsory
Selling to consumers: CGV are required, and they must be communicated before the sale is concluded. On a website that means accessible before checkout, not buried in a footer nobody clicks.
Selling to businesses: You are not obliged to publish them, but you must provide them to any professional buyer who asks. Refusing or failing to do so is a sanctionable practice.
The distinction matters because the consumer version needs considerably more in it.
What has to be in them
For all sales:
Identity of the seller, including legal form, SIREN, registered address and contact details
Description of the goods or services
Price and how it is determined, including whether VAT applies
Payment terms, the late payment penalty rate, and the €40 recovery indemnity
Delivery or performance terms and timescales
Any discount conditions
Additionally, for consumer sales:
The withdrawal right, its duration, how to exercise it, and a withdrawal form
Information about legal warranties, specifically the two-year conformity guarantee and the hidden defects guarantee
Complaint handling and the consumer mediation service you are affiliated with
For digital services, information on functionality and interoperability
The withdrawal right is the one most commonly missed by small sellers. For distance and off-premises consumer sales, the standard cooling-off period is 14 days. There are exceptions, including bespoke goods, perishables, and digital content supplied immediately with the consumer's express agreement and acknowledgement that the right is lost. Those exceptions are narrower than people assume and have to be handled correctly at the point of sale.
Failing to inform the consumer about the withdrawal right extends the period substantially. That is not a small consequence.
Mediation is worth a separate note. Any business selling to consumers in France must be affiliated with a consumer mediation service and must publish its contact details. It is a low-cost subscription and it is genuinely mandatory.
What to actually do with them
Do not copy a competitor's. Beyond the obvious copyright issue, their CGV are drafted for their business. Their delivery terms, their warranty scope, their exceptions. Inheriting all of that unexamined creates commitments you did not intend to make.
Make acceptance provable. A tick box before checkout, logged with a timestamp. "Available on the website" is weaker than a recorded acceptance if a dispute reaches a tribunal.
Version them. When you change your terms, keep the old versions and record which version each customer accepted and when. This matters more than it sounds, because the terms that govern a dispute are the ones in force when the contract was formed, not the ones on your site today.
Keep them consistent with everything else. Your CGV, your quotes and your invoices should agree on payment terms, penalty rates and delivery commitments. Contradictions between documents are resolved against whoever drafted them, which is you.
Match them to reality. Terms promising a 48-hour response when you reply in a week are worse than no terms, because they create an obligation you are visibly failing.
When to involve a lawyer
For a straightforward business selling standard goods or services to consumers, a well-built template plus a review is usually proportionate. For anything with unusual risk, custom work, subscriptions with automatic renewal, anything involving personal data as a core function, or international sales, get them drafted properly.
The middle path that works for most small businesses: draft a first version yourself so you understand what is in it, then have it reviewed. You will ask better questions and pay for less of the lawyer's time.
AI tools can shorten the drafting considerably, and Mirage Cloud includes an agent scoped to French business law questions. Treat the output the way you would treat a first draft from a junior: useful structure, needs checking. Their own acceptable use policy says exactly this, which is the right position. A generated contract is a starting point, not a filing.
The test
Read your terms and ask what happens under them if a customer refuses to pay, if goods arrive damaged, or if someone wants to cancel three weeks in.
If the document does not answer those three questions clearly, it is not finished, whatever it says about jurisdiction and applicable law.
Comments
Log in or sign up to join the conversation.