European market entry
The full compliance landscape for entering the EU.
When a client enters the European market it meets every compliance wall at once. As your desk, we coordinate the whole entry — corporate, data, consumer and product — through a single point of contact.
Setting up in France
We handle entity choice and incorporation with our corporate-law partner, so your client’s French structure is in place correctly from the start, alongside the IP it needs to protect.
Data protection and the GDPR
A non-EU company handling EU personal data must address the GDPR before launch — identifying a lawful basis, issuing compliant notices, putting processing contracts in place and, where it has no EU establishment, appointing an EU representative. We map what applies and prepare the documents.
Consumer protection — and how protective it is
French and EU consumer law is markedly more protective of the consumer than North American law, and most of its rules are mandatory — they cannot be displaced by the contract. Selling to consumers triggers extensive pre-contractual information duties, a fourteen-day withdrawal right in distance selling, control of unfair terms, and a prohibition of misleading and aggressive commercial practices, backed by significant penalties. Terms written for a North American market usually have to be rebuilt to comply.
Environmental claims and greenwashing
Green marketing is now closely policed. The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive ((EU) 2024/825) bans generic environmental claims such as “eco-friendly” that cannot be substantiated and restricts sustainability labels to recognised certification schemes; a further Green Claims Directive, still under negotiation, would require explicit environmental claims to be substantiated and independently verified. France already applies strict rules on environmental and carbon-neutrality claims. We review campaigns and packaging before they go live.
Advertising, labelling and product rules
Beyond green claims, advertising content, labelling, language requirements and sector-specific rules differ from North American norms. We check the campaign and packaging against EU and French requirements.