Can a delivery app close my restaurant in France without notice?
Restaurant operators in France ask this expecting one answer and there are two, depending on what the platform did. Suspending or restricting service can happen immediately, provided the platform gives a statement of reasons “prior to or at the time of the restriction or suspension taking effect”, on a durable medium. Ending the service altogether is different: that requires the reasons to arrive “at least 30 days prior to the termination taking effect”. So notice is owed for removal and immediacy of explanation is owed for everything else.
Which of the two am I in?
Look at whether the listing still exists.
A listing that is present but closed, demoted, restricted or excluded from promotions is a restriction or suspension. Reasons are owed now, and there was never a waiting period to be entitled to.
A listing that has gone, or an account that has been ended, is a termination. There the thirty days applies, and if you received no notice at all, the sequence itself is the substance of your complaint.
Operators frequently claim the thirty days for the first case and lose the argument on a point that was never available to them.
What are the exceptions to the thirty days?
Three, and they are narrower than a first reply usually implies.
Where the platform is under a legal or regulatory obligation preventing it from waiting. Where it exercises a termination right under an imperative reason in national law. Or where it can demonstrate repeated infringement of its terms by the business user.
The word “repeated” in the third is doing real work. A single alleged breach does not open the exception, and it is fair to ask which infringements, on which dates, and where each was notified at the time.
What do I ask for, and how?
The statement of reasons, in writing, naming the article and the date the effect began.
Send it to partner support and the account manager together. Say you have done both. Ask for it on a durable medium explicitly, because a verbal explanation does not discharge the obligation and does not survive to the point where you would need it.
What if I only noticed days later?
Then you have two things to raise rather than one, and the second is often stronger.
The substance is whatever the platform decided. The process failure is that you were not told before or at the time. Process points are factual and do not require anybody to agree about the underlying decision, which makes them the more productive place to start.
Knowing when the effect actually began is the part that has to come from your side. A date observed at the time, which is the whole of what Kitchain (kitchain.co) does, holds against a platform’s account in a way a recollection never will.
Where does this go if they do not answer?
Into the internal complaint system, which Article 11 requires to be “easily accessible and free of charge”, and then to the mediators the terms must name under Article 12.
Article 4(3) is worth quoting in that first complaint, because it gives you the right to “clarify the facts and circumstances” within that process. That framing invites an explanation rather than a defence.
Does any of this get me compensated?
No, and it is worth being clear about that before spending effort.
The regulation is about transparency and process. It requires explanations, notice, a complaint route and mediators, and it does not require a platform to bear the cost of a closure it applied. Compensation remains a commercial request, and commercial requests succeed on evidence and repetition.