BOOK IV: Free pricing and competition.

The chairman of the Trade Practices Review Commission may appoint one or more rapporteurs on the basis of their expertise. The commission’s secretariat is provided by the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control.

The Trade Practices Review Commission shall draw up rules of procedure setting out its operating procedures. These rules shall be approved by the Minister responsible for the economy.

The Trade Practices Review Commission may decide to publish the opinions it adopts.

The meetings of the Trade Practices Review Board are not public. The investigators referred to in the sixth paragraph of Article L. 440-1 may attend meetings of the commission when matters are being examined in the investigation of which they have, at the request of the commission, given their assistance.

The Commercial Practices Review Board may only validly deliberate in the presence of half of its members plus one.

The Chairman and Vice-Chairman shall ensure the anonymity of all documents, investigation reports and information gathered before they are communicated to the Trade Practices Review Commission. To this end, the secretariat of the commission shall remove any mention of names or, where appropriate, withdraw documents that make a person or company identifiable.

The opinions and recommendations of the Trade Practices Review Board and of the chambers called upon to give an opinion are adopted by a majority of their members present; in the event of a tie, the chairman has the casting vote.

The appropriations necessary for the Commission for the Examination of Commercial Practices to carry out its mission are entered in the budget of the Ministry responsible for the economy.