The Causette brand comes out of the turmoil

In receivership since January 9, 2018, the women's magazine Causette has finally found a buyer after going through a complicated episode regarding its brand.

Gregory Lassus-Debat, one of the co-founders of the newspaper Causette, was seeking royalties of 100,000 euros per year for the use of the CAUSETTE trademark, which does not belong to the company operating the magazine (Gynéthic Editions). This threatened the takeover of the magazine and the future of its employees. The latter filed a complaint against the manager for abuse of corporate assets and concealment of abuse of corporate assets. Zoom on this case.

Causette, the brand at the center of the magazine's revival...

The CAUSETTE brand was originally registered in the name of Editions Gynéthic by the two founders of the newspaper. So far, everything was going well. But in 2011, the trademark was transferred to Mr. Lassus-Debat, who became the personal owner. Then in 2015, the brand is again sold, this time to the company Lou Medias Invest, a SASU whose sole partner is... Mr. Lassus-Debat.

As the takeover approached, the latter would have asked the future buyer to pay €100,000 in royalties per year for 3 years, then 3% of the magazine's annual turnover. This is more than enough to put off candidates for the takeover of Gynéthic and Causette magazine.

Its application blocked the takeover: the company was in danger of being definitively wound up by the courts and its employees were in danger of being made redundant.

There followed a controversy in the media about the good or bad faith of Mr Lassus-Debat, which is not the subject of this report. One can only wonder about the intrinsic legality of the first transfer of the trademark to the manager: since it is a company asset, it seems difficult to justify that it was transferred to its manager, a fortiori if the price of the transfer was not in accordance with its real value (apparently high value, according to Mr. Lassus-Debat, who nevertheless asks for substantial annual sums for the continuation of its operation).

Epilogue of the Causette case

Tuesday, February 13, the magazine Causette has reached a turning point. An agreement was reached at the Commercial Court between Lou Media Invest and the Hildegarde Group, owner of the magazines Le Film français and Première.

Under the terms of the agreement, Lou Media Invest would have finally agreed to cede the entire CAUSETTE brand to the Hildegarde group, which would take over the Gynéthic publishing house, and 14 out of 18 employees would keep their jobs.

On 7 March 2018, the Commercial Court definitively validated the newspaper's takeover, which the latest issue came out today! Long live Causette!