Refusal to grant standing to appeal by a farmer against the granting of an authorization to acquire an agricultural business to a non-farmer

Facts

B., C.Y., D.Y. and E.Y. are the owners of a 15-hectare wine estate in the municipality of F. On 8 November 2016, they concluded a conditional sale of this estate to company A. SA for CHF 15,500,000, subject to obtaining authorization to acquire from the Rural Land Commission. A public tender was published on 18 November 2016. X., a farmer, repeatedly expressed interest in the business and requested the determination of the lawful price. The Land Commission set the lawful price at CHF 19,028,000 and granted the authorization to acquire to A. SA. X. appealed against this decision, but the Cantonal Court ruled that he lacked standing to appeal, on the grounds that he had not made a firm offer within the meaning of Art. 64 para. 1 let. f RLRA.

Considerations

The Federal Tribunal upheld X.'s appeal. It considered that Art. 64 para. 1 let. f RLRA does not require the farmer to make an offer to contract within the meaning of Art. 3 et seq. CO, but only to express his interest and request the determination of the lawful price. Since X. had done so, he should have been recognized as having…