Press Release: Freedom of establishment: infringement proceedings against France over biomedical laboratories

The European Commission decided to start proceedings before the Court concerning the incompatibility of French legal restrictions on the ownership of capital in biomedical laboratories with the freedom of establishment guaranteed by Article 43 of the EC Treaty. French legislation states that a non-biomedical firm may hold no more than one quarter of the shares of a company operating biomedical laboratories and prohibits any natural or legal person from holding shares in more than two firms set up in order to jointly operate one or more biomedical laboratories. The Commission considers that these restrictions limit the scope for partnerships, especially with legal persons in other Member States, and the freedom of establishment in France of laboratories which are established in other Member States but do not fulfil the criteria imposed by French legislation.