10. 1. 87 Official Journal of the European Communities No L 8/49 (Acts whose publication is not obligatory) COMMISSION COMMISSION DECISION of 17 December 1986 relating to a proceeding under Article 85 of the EEC Treaty (IV/31.428 to 31.432 — Yves Rocher) (Only the French text is authentic) (87/14/EEC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, and in particular Article 85 there- of, Having to Council Regulation No 17 of 6 February 1962, First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty (*) as last amended by the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal, and in particular Articles 6 and 8 thereof, Having regard to the notification and application for negative clearance submitted on 15 January 1985 by Yves Rocher, La Gacilly, France, concerning a system of stan- dard form franchise contracts for the retailing of cosme- tics covering France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Spain. Having regard to the summary of the notification published (?) pursuant to Article 19 (3) of Regulation No 17, After consulting the Advisory Committee on Restrictive Practices and Dominant Positions, Whereas : I. Facts A. The undertaking (1)  Société d’études de chimie et de thérapie appli- quées (SECTA) Laboratoires de Cosmétologie Yves () OJ No 13, 21. 2. 1962, p. 204/62. () OJ No C 95, 23. 4. 1986, p. 3. @ @) Kocher, whose registered office is in La Gacilly, France, is one of the leading European producers of cosmetics. Its equity capital is held 35 % by the Yves Rocher family and 65 % by Sanofi, a subsid- iary of Elf Aquitaine, whose cosmetics production accounts for a quarter of its total turnover. ) Yves Rocher markets its products in 50 countries and has 15 wholly-owned marketing subsidiaries abroad. It originally sold its products by mail order but, starting in 1970, has set up in seven Commu- nity Member States (France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Spain) a network of franchised retail outlets known as ‘Yves Rocher Beauty Centres’. These Centres sell only Yves Rocher products. The Yves Rocher group now has some 10 million mail- order customers. Its network of shops consists of - about a thousand franchise businesses of which a little over 600 are in France. Their average annual turnover is less than 300 000 ECU. Yves Rocher also operates a number of pilot schemes on its own account. : B. The product and the market "Cosmetics in the broad sense, i.e. that of substance used in beauty care, can be broken down into 42 groups comptising some 100000 different products. This extreme diversity reflects the