Seconda, collective intelligence to elevate your legal expertise
A month with Seconda
Welcome to the Seconda newsletter!
As every month, we present our latest news as well as that of our Seconds, we open the debate on a legal issue and we also present a work, a place or a person, related to the world of law, that has marked us and that we recommend!
Enjoy your reading and all your feedback is welcome!
What's new at Seconda?
Seconda returns to Marseille to participate in the FNUJA congress
Seconda to the FNUJA committee of Marseille!
From April 3 to 6, the city of Marseille hosted the decentralized committee of the FNUJA - National Federation of Young Lawyers' Unions …and Seconda !
For 4 days, exciting training sessions, intense debates, collaborative work on the legal profession and wonderful moments of conviviality.
Marseille has become the host for members of the various UJA who came in large numbers to attend these high-quality events.
Invited at the initiative of the president of UJA Marseille, Kevin Lefebvre-Goirand, Seconda was able to participate in the Friday afternoon training entitled "My First Media Case" in the presence of Béatrice Zavarro and Yassine Bouzrou as well as Denis Trossero , journalist at La Provence.
Seconda is making headlines!
It all started over a sunny breakfast in September.
We tell each other about our holidays, we talk about going back to school, about our wishes for the coming year, then the discussion gets carried away, as often happens, and an idea emerges…An idea that takes flight, that seizes us, that surprises us, that seduces us… and that we decide not to let fall away.
So we ask ourselves: Do we have the right to do this? Is this for us? How do we go about it?
After ensuring the feasibility of the project, we did as usual: we started looking for ingenious, clever and talented experts.
And then we came across Thomas Mercier and the Union (which we will talk about again because the philosophy of this company speaks to us).
He immediately grasped our desire to create a campaign that reflected who we are: original, precise and a little bit cheeky.
From the very first proposals, you can feel that we are heading in the right direction.
And, because you don't change a winning formula, we entrusted Christophe Chantebel with the scenario!
The result: a poster that is understated and elegant, with a bold and effective message that pursues a simple objective: to put Seconda in everyone's minds.
This campaign will be circulating quite a bit. Keep your eyes peeled, let us know when you see it, we're really eager to hear what you think!
Coming in May: the Seconda Tour bus is heading to Montpellier!
Walid Chaiehloudj, associate professor and expert in competition law.
Secondant of the Month
This month, we present Walid CHAIEHLOUDJ !
Walid, an involved and recognized player in competition law, is currently developing expertise at the intersection of economic law and artificial intelligence.
Walid is not afraid of AI. On the contrary, he has decided to immerse himself in it and tame it as much as possible, in order to become the necessary and preferred interlocutor for technology creators seeking passionate lawyers to develop their tools.
To begin with, Walid dislikes the term "AI." He finds it misleading, given that it isn't truly "intelligence," and prefers the slightly more neutral expression "AI systems." Furthermore, by delving into these AI systems, Walid quickly debunked the idea of an algorithmic "black box." He explains that "companies know very well how algorithms work," that "the algorithm doesn't always escape its master," and that, ultimately, one of the major challenges for the law lies precisely in this opacity, which exists only from the consumer's perspective.
Walid also believes that major disputes involving Google or Meta are profoundly changing the way competition law is applied, especially with the advent of the Digital Markets Act.
On March 11, Walid organised and participated in a conference on Google and antitrust in Nice alongside Maître Fayrouz Masmidani and David Virose, head of the legal department of the European Commission, and he is currently organised a symposium on the application of new texts relating to AI with Jacques Mestre and the AFDD.
Walid has not forgotten his fundamentals: he participated in a symposium on sustainability and economic law (to be published by LexisNexis), a workshop at the Competition Authority on regulated professions, and contributed to a study on competition law in New Caledonia where he notably proposes the creation of a procedure to balance protectionism and consumer interests - Walid was also in Polynesia on March 18 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Polynesian competition law.
And always in search of new adventures, Walid will be teaching at Sorbonne Abu Dhabi in April and will participate in a symposium on influence with the Henri Capitant Association in May, before joining a working group on digital sovereignty at the ECB!
Question of the month
Foreign law: what status before the Court of Cassation?
"It is incumbent upon the French judge who recognizes the applicability of a foreign law to investigate its content, either of his own motion or at the request of a party who invokes it, with the assistance of the parties and personally if necessary, and to give the disputed question a solution in accordance with the foreign positive law": such is the rule laid down by the Court of Cassation regarding the role of the judge in the search for and application of foreign law.
The Court of Cassation ensures compliance with this rule in two ways.
First, it ensures that trial judges do not place the burden of establishing the content of foreign law exclusively on the parties.
Next, it demands that the trial judges specify the rules of foreign law on which they rely to resolve the dispute.
But his control doesn't go any further.
This means that the Court of Cassation refuses to review the interpretation of foreign law. This interpretation is left to the sovereign power of the lower courts, with the sole limitation being the exceptional sanction of misrepresentation.
Alongside the purely expedient reason of managing the number of appeals, the main theoretical basis put forward to justify this position is the role of the Court of Cassation: the Court of Cassation ensures the unity of interpretation of French law and is not the guardian of the unity of foreign law.
The argument is strong. But it is not without a response.
Regarding the "incentive" to exhaust legal remedies, can a party really be blamed for exercising a legal right available to them?
First, some explain that the same injustice in the application of the law on French territory can result from differences in the interpretation of a French or foreign law.
Questions are also being raised about the scope of the obligation imposed on lower court judges to provide a solution to the dispute "in accordance with foreign positive law", recognized as applicable, if the Court of Cassation itself largely deprives itself of the power to verify compliance with this obligation.
Without going so far as to unduly confer upon the Court of Cassation, in the application of foreign law, a role as normative as that which it assumes in the application of French law, can we not conceive of a control which, going beyond mere distortion, would consist of ensuring that the lower court judges have attributed to the foreign law a meaning and a scope consistent with those which it receives in its own legal system?
Avo-plumes! The debate is open.
Our Secondants in the news
Yann Heyraud
Yann Heyraud, a lawyer and doctor of law specializing in economic law, analyzes two recent decisions in economic law for Dalloz Actualité:
A franchisee is not at fault when preparing a competing project during the execution of their contract, Dalloz Actualité, April 2, 2025 (note on Cass. com., March 19, 2025, no. 23-22.925, SJM)
Significant imbalance: the mere arrangement of a supplementary provision is not sufficient, Dalloz Actualité, March 17, 2025 (note under Cass. com., February 26, 2025 no. 23-20.225, Douvier).
In parallel, Yann comments, in the journal Lexbase Affaires , on two very recent cases involving the abrupt termination of established business relationships in an international context. These cases deal with the classification of the action and therefore the applicable legal text: Lexbase Affaires, no. 821, March 20, 2025, no. N1866B3I.
Jean-Baptiste Barbièri, Nadège Jullian and Sandrine Tisseyre
March was the month of conferences for our Toulouse Seconds!
They were first present on March 6 and 7, 2025 at the University of Strasbourg to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the SARL , a colloquium during which Sandrine spoke on the theme of Transformation and SARL, Jean-Baptiste on the SARL and public order and Nadège on the EURL of today.
Jean-Baptiste and Nadège then went to Tours for a symposium on " Collective decisions in unlisted companies - legislative and jurisprudential news ".
Finally, Sandrine organised a symposium in Pau to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Master 2 Notarial Law Pau.
A film, an exhibition, a restaurant…
Alexei Navaly is at the heart of this breathtaking documentary.
This month, we're talking about "Navalny" , which won the Oscar for best documentary in 2023.
The pitch: The documentary opens as it ends, with Navalny, his piercing blue eyes, facing the camera, led by the journalist to confront what will happen to him a few months later…his death.
Largely hagiographic towards its eponymous character, even if it highlights his shadowy areas, the documentary is above all spectacular for the investigation carried out by Navalny and Christo Grozev, of the investigative journal "Bellingcat", to find the instigators and executors of his poisoning with Novichok in August 2020.
The film's highlight: a surreal phone interview in which Navalny manages to get in touch with one of the alleged participants in his assassination attempt and get him to talk.
It would make the best Hollywood screenwriters green with envy.
The documentary also gives ample space to Yulia Navalnaya, who is combative and determined to support her husband and continue to make his voice heard.
Although the documentary may veer into sensationalism with a character as fascinating as he is disturbing, it leaves us with a crucial message, more relevant than ever: for evil to triumph, all it takes is for good people to do nothing.
The documentary is available for free until May 12, 2025 on the France TV platform.
Thank you for reading.
That's all you need to know for this month, see you next month!
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See you very soon!
Fred-Eric and Neda
