For a company selling its products to a French retailer, annual negotiations will no longer all be able to wait for the same deadline. A French reform that came into force on 20 August 2026 brings forward to 31 January 2027 the deadline for certain agreements with suppliers whose worldwide turnover is below €350 million. Other companies retain, in principle, the 1 March deadline. But the threshold cannot be assessed simply by looking at the sales of the subsidiary signing the agreement.
Why two dates instead of one?
Suppliers and retailers negotiate their commercial agreements each year, setting agreed prices and other terms of their relationship. French Law No. 2026-796 of 18 August 2026, known as the Emergency Law for the Protection and Agricultural Sovereignty, changed this arrangement.
Its Article 54, published on Légifrance, provides on an experimental basis, until 31 December 2029, that several deadlines set for 1 March are to be replaced by 31 January for the relevant suppliers that are legal entities and whose annual worldwide turnover excluding tax in the last completed financial year is below €350 million. This applies to agreements covered by the provisions cited in the law, and not just to agricultural products.
The measure does not mean that all companies have to sign in January. The law firm HW&H, in its analysis of 21 September 2026, also draws attention to the exclusion of wholesalers from the scheme. The company’s legal classification and the type of agreement therefore matter just as much as its apparent business activity.
The €350 million threshold must be checked at group level
The €350 million figure may seem easy to check in a set of accounts. However, the law requires extra care: when a supplier’s accounts are included in those of one or more consolidating or combining companies, the highest worldwide turnover excluding tax shown in those accounts must be taken into account.
Thus, a company with turnover of €60 million that belongs to a group exceeding the threshold does not automatically qualify for the 31 January timetable. This is an illustrative example; it does not describe any particular company. Conversely, an independent company below this threshold may be covered by the new deadline if the other conditions are met.
This point is also highlighted by KPMG Avocats in a note dated 30 September 2026. For a sales manager, the mistake would be to look only at domestic turnover or that of the invoicing company, without examining the scope of consolidation.
General terms of sale must be sent earlier
Changing the deadline for concluding agreements affects how the files must be prepared. For the categories of agreement concerned, the law also reduces the statutory period before the new deadline from three months to two months. According to HW&H and KPMG Avocats, suppliers concerned by food and consumer goods must therefore submit their general terms of sale within the time limits corresponding to the 31 January deadline, which in practice means by 1 December 2026 at the latest for files subject to this timetable.
This does not mean waiting until December to find out what the obligations are. A company must first identify the correct regime, then prepare its price list, terms and required documents. Applying the wrong deadline can complicate negotiations even when the proposed price is justified.
For larger suppliers, the principle of a 1 March timetable remains distinct. The deadline for communicating terms of sale must then be assessed in accordance with the applicable law and the products concerned.
Agricultural raw materials feature more clearly in pricing formulas
The change goes beyond the timetable. For certain food products and pet food, the reform allows suppliers to include in their general terms of sale an automatic price-list revision formula based on the cost of agricultural raw materials.
The formula must be designed to work both upwards and downwards, according to identical procedures. If it is included, the retailer cannot freely remove it during negotiations: the agreement must incorporate it under the conditions laid down by law. The supplier must provide information about the raw materials concerned, their geographical origin and their share of the product, by value and volume.
This does not mean that a retailer would be unable to challenge anything. The analyses by KPMG Avocats and HW&H explain that an objection may be based on objective economic data when the connection drawn between changes in agricultural costs and the price is manifestly erroneous.
In food negotiations, the retailer’s response to the terms submitted is also governed by rules. A request for a price reduction can no longer be limited to a general assertion: it must be supported by objective evidence. This framework is intended to document disagreements more effectively, without guaranteeing that they will disappear.
What this means for a Luxembourg company
The scheme described here falls under French law governing commercial relations. It does not automatically apply to all contracts concluded in Luxembourg simply because a company or supplier is established there. For a Luxembourg company selling to French retailers, it is necessary to examine the parties, the nature of the products, the application of the French Commercial Code and the group’s structure.
The issue is primarily contractual and operational: determining which regime applies, documenting the figures for the last completed financial year, knowing the correct deadline for sending commercial terms, and providing for relevant revision clauses.
At this stage, the new January 2027 timetable is set by law, but the economic results of the 2027 negotiations are not yet known. It is not possible to infer from this what products will cost on shop shelves, or to claim that all retailers and suppliers will come out ahead. Clarifying the legal deadlines is already useful information when preparing agreements.
