On the morning of Monday 12 October 2026, managers arriving at hundreds of French supermarkets were met by a wave of hot air coming from their freezers. Overnight, hackers had taken control of the software that regulates refrigeration units, forcing some cabinets up to temperatures around 50°C and spoiling fresh and frozen food said to be worth millions of euros. According to the BBC (12 October 2026), about 400 stores out of roughly 15,000 across France were affected; AFP described the incident as an unprecedented cyberattack on refrigeration systems, and the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a dedicated cyber-crime investigation, calling it a large-scale attack on the refrigerators of several major food retail chains.
If you own the walls — the retail unit, the shopping parade lot, the high-street shop leased to a food retailer — this kind of event lands on your desk within hours: the tenant calls about destroyed stock and asks to stop paying rent, the insurer asks for immediate notice, and everyone points at everyone else. No liability has been established at this stage, the contracts signed between the parties will prevail over any general analysis, and only a court can finally allocate responsibility. This guide explains, under French law, how a foreign owner of leased commercial premises should react in the first days, who normally bears what, and which recent court decisions frame the argument over rent.
I. The First Seventy-Two Hours: Securing the Premises, the Stock and the Evidence
A. What reportedly happened, and the five steps a foreign owner should take immediately
The facts, as reported on 12 October 2026 by the BBC, AFP and Reuters, are these: hackers gained remote control of the software used by retailers to manage refrigerated display units centrally; instead of the normal short overnight defrost cycle, the units were ordered to heat up and stay hot for hours; in some places staff found small fires; retailers threw away all food whose cold chain could no longer be guaranteed; and two supermarkets in the Alsace region alone reported combined losses of around 270,000 euros, suggesting a nationwide total running into the millions. The software vendor concerned reportedly stated that the affected units were older models whose security software could not be updated against a previously identified risk. None of this has been tested in court, and the criminal investigation is only beginning — but a landlord cannot wait for its outcome before acting.
First, food safety comes before legal tactics. Product unfit for consumption must be withdrawn and destroyed, and the destruction must be documented: photographs, temperature logs from the units, delivery dockets, till and stock records, and the retailer’s written instructions to staff. Under French practice, destroyed stock that is not properly evidenced is almost impossible to recover from anyone later.
Second, commission an independent record of the state of the premises at once. In France, the standard tool is a report (constat) drawn up by a commissaire de justice (court-appointed enforcement officer, formerly known as huissier de justice), ideally within 24 to 48 hours: condition of the refrigeration units, displayed temperatures, state of the electrical and ventilation installations, and any damage to the building itself such as smoke or water damage from defrosting. A bailiff-style report is the piece of evidence French judges trust most when each side later disputes what happened and when.
Third, notify every potentially concerned insurer immediately — your own assurance propriétaire non occupant (non-occupant owner’s policy) and, in writing, invite the tenant to notify theirs. French insurance law sets a strict floor, as the Cour de cassation recalled: “l’assuré est obligé de donner avis à l’assureur, de tout sinistre de nature à entraîner la garantie de celui-ci, dès qu’il en a eu connaissance et au plus tard dans le délai fixé par le contrat, qui ne peut être inférieur à cinq jours ouvrés” (Cass. 2e civ., 21 Jan. 2021, No. 19-13.347; Article L. 113-2 of the Insurance Code). In plain English: the insured must notify the insurer of any potentially covered loss as soon as they learn of it and at the latest within the contractual deadline, which cannot be shorter than five working days. Miss that deadline and the insurer may — where the policy so provides and where it proves prejudice — invoke forfeiture of cover. The same decision adds an important shield for policyholders: forfeiture for late notification can only be enforced where the contract actually contains a compliant clause, so the first document to read after the emergency is the policy itself.
Fourth, preserve the digital evidence. Ask the tenant and the maintenance contractor in writing to retain system logs, remote-access records, software versions, update histories and the vendor’s security notices. If the refrigeration system was remotely administered by an outside provider, that provider is a potential party to any future claim, and its traces disappear fast.
Fifth, file or join the criminal track without delay. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a cyber-crime investigation; a victim landlord or tenant can file a complaint (plainte) and later join the proceedings as a civil party (constitution de partie civile) to seek damages within the criminal case. For a foreign owner, this step is handled through a French lawyer and does not require residence in France.
Practical trap for non-resident owners: do not authorise the tenant to throw away, repair or replace anything without a written, costed agreement on who pays. Emergency measures taken unilaterally are routinely disputed afterwards. A short exchange of registered letters (or any written form your lease accepts) recording the provisional allocation of costs — expressly “without prejudice” to final liability — saves months of argument later. Readers unfamiliar with the French commercial lease framework may start with our overview of how French commercial leases allocate charges, rent and repairs between foreign investors and their tenants.
B. Who is responsible for what inside a French commercial lease
French law starts from a simple principle: the landlord must deliver and maintain premises fit for the agreed business use. Article 1719 of the Civil Code obliges the lessor, by the very nature of the contract, to deliver the premises, to maintain them fit for their intended use, and to ensure the tenant’s peaceful enjoyment; Article 1720 of the Civil Code adds that the landlord must deliver the property in good repair of every kind and carry out all non-routine repairs that become necessary during the lease. The Cour de cassation restated the rule forcefully in 2025: “le bailleur est obligé, par la nature du contrat, de délivrer au preneur la chose louée, en bon état de réparations de toute espèce” (Cass. 3e civ., 10 Apr. 2025, No. 23-14.974). In English: the landlord must, by the nature of the contract, deliver the premises in a good state of repair of every kind — an obligation that runs throughout the lease, not only on day one.
That same decision contains a warning that matters enormously in commercial leases. A boilerplate waiver clause (clause de non-recours) by which the tenant waives all claims against the landlord for damage to stock or equipment, whatever the cause, does not release the landlord from this delivery obligation: The Court added that a generic no-claims clause which does not genuinely transfer specific maintenance or repair tasks to the tenant cannot release the landlord from this delivery obligation In other words, a generic no-claims clause cannot wipe out the landlord’s core duty to deliver and maintain fit premises; only clauses that genuinely transfer specific maintenance or repair tasks to the tenant have that effect. Foreign owners who assumed their lease’s sweeping waiver settled everything should re-read it with this decision in hand.
In practice, the answer to “who pays for the broken cold chain” depends on three layers, in this order. First, what exactly failed: the building’s electrical supply, ventilation or fixed installations (normally the landlord’s sphere) or the tenant’s own refrigerated display cabinets and their remote-management software (normally the tenant’s sphere, unless the landlord supplied or maintains them). Second, what the lease says: modern French commercial leases contain detailed schedules allocating major repairs (grosses réparations, Article 606 of the Civil Code), routine maintenance, compliance upgrades and equipment renewals between the parties — and since the 2014 Pinel reform, each category of charges, taxes and works must be inventoried in the lease. Third, what the maintenance and software contracts say: where a specialist contractor or software vendor remotely administers the refrigeration system, its liability may be engaged alongside or instead of the parties to the lease, subject to the limitation clauses in its own contract.
A common configuration in supermarket premises illustrates the analysis. The landlord owns the shell, the power supply and sometimes the central cooling plant; the tenant operates the display cabinets and subscribes to the remote-management software. If hackers entered through the vendor’s outdated software, the tenant would most plausibly turn first against the vendor and its own insurer, while the landlord’s exposure would depend on whether any building-level system within its maintenance duty contributed to the damage. Conversely, if the failure originated in the building’s electrical installation, the landlord’s delivery obligation would be squarely in play. Each configuration must be established technically before any legal conclusion is drawn — which is why the independent constat and the preserved logs from section A are decisive.
One more trap for foreign owners: small fires and water damage from mass defrosting can affect neighbouring units or common areas. Notify the building insurer and, in co-owned buildings (copropriété), the syndic immediately; boundary and common-area damage follows its own allocation rules and its own deadlines.
II. Rent, Liability and Insurance: Who Bears the Financial Loss
A. Can the tenant suspend the rent? The Article 1722 test and its limits
The tenant’s first reflex is often to stop paying rent until the premises are fully usable again. French law does not grant an automatic right to do so, but it offers a precise mechanism. Article 1722 of the Civil Code provides: “Si, pendant la durée du bail, la chose louée est détruite en totalité par cas fortuit, le bail est résilié de plein droit ; si elle n’est détruite qu’en partie, le preneur peut, suivant les circonstances, demander ou une diminution du prix, ou la résiliation même du bail.” In English: if the leased property is totally destroyed by a fortuitous event, the lease ends automatically; if it is only partly destroyed, the tenant may, depending on the circumstances, seek a rent reduction or even termination — with no damages in either case.
Three recent Cour de cassation decisions draw the boundaries of this text, and each carries a lesson for the present cyberattack. In 2018, the Court held that total destruction includes situations assimilated to it: “Que doit être assimilée à la destruction en totalité de la chose louée l’impossibilité absolue et définitive d’en user conformément à sa destination” (Cass. 3e civ., 8 Mar. 2018, No. 17-11.439). That is: an absolute and permanent impossibility of using the premises as intended counts as total destruction. A refrigeration shutdown lasting days, with restocking possible once units are secured, would be difficult to present as absolute and definitive — but a months-long unavailability of the only activity the premises were leased for would be a different case.
In 2009, the Court set the economic test for total versus partial destruction: “si le coût des travaux de remise en état de l’immeuble loué n’excédait pas sa valeur, emportant ainsi destruction totale de la chose louée” (Cass. 3e civ., 9 Dec. 2009, No. 08-17.483). Total destruction exists, for Article 1722 purposes, where the restoration cost is claimed to exceed the value of the building’s market value. Where repair costs are modest relative to value — new control units, software upgrades, replacement cabinets — the destruction is partial, opening at most a rent reduction proportionate to the loss of use, not an automatic end to the lease.
And in 2025, the Court drew a line that directly affects cyberattack arguments. A tenant that had been administratively closed during the Covid-19 pandemic claimed a partial loss of the premises and refused full rent; the Court quashed the appeal decision, holding: “L’effet de la mesure gouvernementale d’interdiction de recevoir du public, générale et temporaire et sans lien direct avec la destination contractuelle du local loué, ne peut être assimilé à la perte de la chose, au sens de l’article 1722 du code civil” (Cass. 3e civ., 7 May 2025, No. 24-10.097). In English: a general, temporary public-closure measure with no direct link to the contractual purpose of the premises cannot be treated as a loss of the leased property. Rent therefore remained fully due for the closure period. The lesson cuts both ways. Unlike a pandemic lockdown, a hacked refrigeration system is a physical defect affecting the very equipment the food-retail activity depends on — arguably closer to a partial loss of the premises than a general external measure was. But the tenant must still prove a concrete, premises-level loss of use, quantify it, and seek a judicial reduction; self-help rent withholding remains risky, because if the court later rejects the Article 1722 claim, the unpaid rent becomes straightforward arrears that can trigger the lease’s termination clause (clause résolutoire).
What about force majeure? Article 1218 of the Civil Code defines it strictly: “Il y a force majeure en matière contractuelle lorsqu’un événement échappant au contrôle du débiteur, qui ne pouvait être raisonnablement prévu lors de la conclusion du contrat et dont les effets ne peuvent être évités par des mesures appropriées, empêche l’exécution de son obligation par le débiteur.” That is, force majeure requires an event beyond the debtor’s control, unforeseeable at contract date, whose effects were unavoidable despite appropriate measures — and even then, a temporary impediment merely suspends performance rather than extinguishing it. A cyberattack might meet the first two tests, but the third is treacherous: where the vendor had publicly warned that older units needed security updates, a court could consider that appropriate measures existed and were not taken. Force majeure should therefore be pleaded as a possibility to be tested against the technical facts, never assumed. And it does not automatically free the tenant from rent either: the tenant’s payment obligation is rarely “prevented” in the Article 1218 sense, since money can still be transferred; the proper vehicle for unusable premises remains Article 1722.
Practical guidance for the foreign landlord receiving a rent strike. First, answer in writing immediately, reserving all rights and contesting any unilateral reduction. Second, propose a documented interim arrangement — for example, payment of the full rent into escrow or a quantified temporary abatement expressly tied to the measured period of unusability — rather than accepting a blank suspension. Third, check the clause résolutoire: under French commercial-lease practice, a termination clause can only be invoked after a formal payment order (commandement de payer) referring to the clause and a one-month grace period, so keep that procedure available rather than letting arrears drift. Fourth, quantify the actual loss of use separately from the tenant’s lost stock and lost margin: Article 1722 concerns the value of the use of the premises, not the tenant’s business losses, which belong to insurance, not to rent abatement.
B. Insurance, evidence and Paris procedure: turning the loss into a recoverable claim
Once the emergency is contained, the financial loss divides into up to four pockets: destroyed stock, decontamination and repair costs, lost margin during closure (perte d’exploitation, business interruption), and any third-party claims from customers or neighbours. Each follows its own policy and its own proof requirements, and the deadlines start running from discovery.
Start with notification discipline. As noted above, Article L. 113-2 of the Insurance Code requires notice within the contractual deadline (minimum five working days), and the 2021 Cour de cassation decision protects policyholders against forfeiture clauses that do not comply with the statute — but it does not excuse silence. Notify in writing, describe the event factually, list the policies potentially triggered (multirisque commerce, perte d’exploitation, responsabilité civile, and the owner’s non-occupant policy), and send the same notice to the broker. Keep proof of dispatch. A foreign owner acting from abroad should mandate a French-based contact — lawyer, property manager or broker — to receive expert appointments and registered letters, because French loss-adjustment timetables do not pause for international post.
Second, build the causation file the insurer and the court will demand. The chain runs: intrusion into the remote-management software, overheating of the units, spoilage of identified batches, closure days, restocking costs. Each link needs a document: the vendor’s incident notices and software version history, the maintenance contractor’s intervention reports, the commissaire de justice’s constat, temperature logs, destruction certificates, supplier invoices for replacement stock, and accounts showing the margin shortfall against comparable periods. Business-interruption cover typically indemnifies the margin lost during the period strictly necessary for restoration — not a full year of hoped-for profits — and adjusts for saved expenses, so early accounting input matters.
Third, do not overlook recourse against the software and maintenance chain. Where remote administration was outsourced, the vendor or service provider that left known-vulnerable units exposed could face liability for breach of its security and advisory duties; any such claim would be contractual, governed by its own limitation and liability-cap clauses, and supported by the preserved logs. The retailer’s claim against that chain does not automatically benefit the landlord, who must establish its own loss (damage to the building, loss of rental value) and its own legal basis. Parallel proceedings are common and must be coordinated so that expert findings in one case can be used in the other.
Fourth, Paris and Île-de-France specifics. The criminal investigation sits with the Paris prosecutor’s cyber-crime unit, so complaints and civil-party applications from owners of affected Paris-region stores converge on Paris — a practical reason to centralise the file with counsel in Paris even for premises elsewhere in France. Civil claims for commercial leases fall to the judicial courts of the premises’ location, with the Paris Judicial Court handling the capital’s heavy retail caseload; emergency applications (référé) can secure a court-appointed expert within weeks where the parties cannot agree on one privately. Procedural time limits in France are strict and some run in days, so diary control from the first week is essential. Our Paris-based team regularly handles commercial property disputes for international owners before the Paris courts, from emergency expert proceedings to rent litigation.
Tax note, without detailed advice: destroyed stock is written off under inventory rules, indemnities follow their own accounting and tax treatment, and non-resident owners should check with their French accountant how compensation interacts with French-source rental income reporting. Flag the issue early; do not let it drive the legal strategy.
Conclusion
The 12 October 2026 refrigeration cyberattack is a textbook stress test for French commercial leases: it separates, within days, owners who can prove what happened from those who can only describe it. Secure the food chain first, record everything through a commissaire de justice, notify all insurers inside the five-working-day floor, preserve the software traces, and read the lease’s repair schedule before conceding anything on rent. Article 1722 offers the tenant a measured remedy — proportionate reduction or, in extreme cases, termination — but recent case law shows courts applying it rigorously and rejecting both automatic rent cancellation and blanket force-majeure excuses. No responsibility has been judicially established at this stage, the signed contracts remain the primary reference, and only the courts seized of the dispute will have the last word.