General terms and conditions and IT service provider's duty to advise

In a ruling dated 16 October 2015, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered the termination of a services contract for the development of an e-commerce site, i.e. its retroactive termination on the grounds that the service provider had failed in its duty to advise and, consequently, that the service it had provided was unsuited to the client's obvious needs.

In this case, the aim was to improve a merchant site and the disputed functionality concerned payment methods.

According to the Court of Appeal, the service provider, who has a duty to advise, is obliged to inform the customer:

"the limits of its service and therefore the restrictions on the software's functionality [...] but also to find out about its customers' needs and help them to express their requirements in order to guide them as best as possible in their choices and to inform them, where appropriate, of the need to take out a contract with a third party to obtain this functionality".

This obligation arises even though the GTC attached to the order form required the customer to specify its requirements.

The Court ruled that the purpose of this clause was not to restrict the scope of the service provider's duty to advise but to limit its obligations relating to guaranteeing compliance with the customer's specific needs.

As a result, the Court dismissed the service provider's claim for payment and ordered it to repay the sums received under the contract.

See the judgment