API access on a global platform: Paris court penalises an abrupt price rise

Digital platforms: an important decision of the Paris Commercial Court (Tribunal des activités économiques) of 7 May 2026.

Rive Gauche Avocats successfully represented AgoraPulse in a dispute over the pricing terms for access to the API of a global digital platform. The court held in particular:

• that a substantial and sudden change in the pricing terms for API access could amount to a partial abrupt termination of an established commercial relationship under Article L. 442-1, II of the French Commercial Code;
• that there was a significant imbalance within the meaning of Article L. 442-1, I of the same code, in a context of strong economic and technological asymmetry;
• that the US holding company and its French and Irish subsidiaries formed a single economic unit, as it had found, in a somewhat different context, in the Google / Rossel decision discussed by Rive Gauche Avocats on 15 December 2025, making them jointly and severally liable;
• that it had jurisdiction despite a clause conferring jurisdiction on the Irish courts, noting first that the clause did not fully meet the requirements of recital 15 of the Brussels I bis Regulation, in particular for want of a sufficiently precise designation of the competent court and given the platform’s unilateral right to opt for French jurisdiction, and second that the group’s French entity, jointly liable as a member of the economic unit, could not be sued before an Irish court without creating a risk of irreconcilable judgments incompatible with Article 29 of the same Regulation.

The decision is of particular interest to businesses building services around the major digital platforms and data-access infrastructure, notably because it shows that French law can allow the earthen pot to stand up to the iron one.

TAE Paris, 7 May 2026, RG No. 2025107426 — first-instance judgment, open to appeal.