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The present decision was rendered in an intellectual property (IP) infringement case brought by the French sport equipment manufacturer Decathlon in order to protect one of its trademarks for shoes. After Decathlon had detected that the supermarket chain Lidl sold hiking shoes with a similar outer design in its French stores, Decathlon sued Lidl in the French Tribunal de Grande Instance Paris for IP violation, and was successful.

The CISG came into play in the proceedings because Lidl had bought the incriminated hiking shoes from their Austrian manufacturer Bevaform whom Lidl therefore formally included into the present proceedings, applying for the finding that the seller was in turn liable towards it (so-called "appel en garantie"). In this respect, the Court held that the CISG applied to the relationship between the French buyer and the Austrian seller, and that Arts. 42 and 43 CISG governed the seller's liability towards the buyer (paras. 35–44 of the decision).

The Court first rejected Bevaform's argument that Lidl had lost any right to rely on Art. 42 CISG because it had only notified Bevaform one year after having become aware of Declathon's claim, and therefore not given notice "within reasonable time" (Art. 43(1) CISG): The Court held that Art. 43(2) CISG barred Bevaform from relying on the late notice because Bevaform, being a specialized manufacturer of hiking shoes, "could not ignore" Decathlon's trademark, given the limited number of hiking shoe manufacturers on the market.

The Court went on to rule that Lidl nevertheless had no claim against Bevaform resulting from Decathlon's third-party rights, as Lidl was a professional distributor in France where Decathlon widely made available its catalogues; accordingly, Lidl could not have been unaware that the shoes it bought violated a third party's IP rights (Art. 42(2)(a) CISG). Lidl's "appel en garantie" against Bevaform was therefore rejected.