In a potentially landmark decision, the Paris Commercial Court has ordered the investment bank Morgan Stanley to compensate LVMH for damages caused by incorrect information and unwarranted recommendations critical of LVMH issued by Morgan Stanley analysts. This article focuses on the civil law aspects of the judgment, and in particular on the impact of conflicts of interest on research analysts' tort liability. Although certain aspects of the Court's reasoning can be criticized, the implicit principles applied by the Court to reach its conclusions are not only consistent with civil law tort theory, but also analogous to the treatment of conflicts of interest in other areas of the law, such as Anglo-American fiduciary law. However, the arbitrary nature of the amount of damages awarded creates excessive uncertainty for the research analysis sector.