The email from the gérant (manager) of the French SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the private limited company) does not always say “refused”. It says the associates will “look at the file”, or that a foreign buyer cannot enter without a meeting, or that the promise of sale is “not opposable”. Three months later the foreign buyer still has no Kbis (extrait Kbis, the official extract from the RCS, registre du commerce et des sociétés), the seller still holds the parts, and the bank will not treat the buyer as an associate. That is an agrément (statutory approval) problem, not a translation problem.

Article L. 223-14 of the code de commerce is mandatory in a SARL: parts cannot be sold to a third party without the consent of a majority of associates representing at least half of the parts, unless the bylaws require more. Silence for three months after the last notification is consent. A real refusal does not kill the seller’s exit: the associates must buy or have the parts bought within three months, at a price set under article 1843-4 of the code civil, or the original sale to the foreign buyer may go through. This article is for the foreign buyer, or the foreign seller, who has already set up or acquired a French company and now faces a blocked transfer. It is not the happy-path filing described in the share-transfer checklist. It is the refusal, the three-month clock, and the 2026 case-law on who may later plead that the agrément was defective.

I. Why the SARL can refuse a foreign buyer and what that refusal actually does

A. How agrément is notified and when silence becomes consent

Article L. 223-14 opens with a rule that cannot be written out of the bylaws: “Les parts sociales ne peuvent être cédées à des tiers étrangers à la société qu’avec le consentement de la majorité des associés représentant au moins la moitié des parts sociales, à moins que les statuts prévoient une majorité plus forte.” A US LLC, a UK Ltd or a natural person who is not already an associate is a “tiers étranger à la société”. The foreign character of the buyer is not, by itself, a legal ground of refusal. The associates may still refuse, for any reason or none, because agrément in a SARL is a power to keep the group closed. What they may not do is ignore the procedure and hope the promise of sale dies of its own accord.

The same article then sets the notice: “Lorsque la société comporte plus d’un associé, le projet de cession est notifié à la société et à chacun des associés.” Article R. 223-11 of the code de commerce says how: “La notification du projet de cession ou de nantissement de parts sociales, prévue au deuxième alinéa de l’article L. 223-14 et à l’article L. 223-15, est faite par acte extrajudiciaire ou par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception.” An email to the gérant, a WhatsApp to the other founder, or a PDF dropped in a data room is not that notification. A foreign seller who starts the three-month clock in his own head, without a recorded delivery to the company and to each associate, has not started it at all.

Once notice is given, article R. 223-12 puts the gérant under an eight-day duty: “Dans le délai de huit jours à compter de la notification qui lui a été faite en application de l’article R. 223-11, le gérant convoque l’assemblée des associés pour qu’elle délibère sur le projet de cession des parts sociales ou, si les statuts le permettent, consulte les associés par écrit sur ce projet. La décision de la société est notifiée au cédant par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception.” A gérant who sits on the letter is already in breach. A meeting that is never called is not a refusal. It is a path to tacit consent.

Article L. 223-14 is explicit on silence: “Si la société n’a pas fait connaître sa décision dans le délai de trois mois à compter de la dernière des notifications prévues au présent alinéa, le consentement à la cession est réputé acquis.” The three months run from the last notification, not from the promise of sale, not from the day the foreign counsel asked for a “comfort letter”. If one associate was never notified, the last notification has not occurred. If all were notified and the company stayed mute for three months, the foreign buyer is approved by law. The Kbis will not change by magic: the transfer must still be in writing and published. But the agrément bar has fallen.

Two-year holding is a trap for a recent subscriber. The sixth paragraph of L. 223-14 provides that, except in succession, liquidation of a matrimonial community, or a gift to a spouse, ascendant or descendant, “l’associé cédant ne peut se prévaloir des dispositions des troisième et cinquième alinéas ci-dessus s’il ne détient ses parts depuis au moins deux ans.” A foreign parent that subscribed last year and now wants to sell 10 % to a local manager cannot force the buyout or the fallback original sale if the company refuses. The associates can refuse and leave the parent with its parts. That is not an anti-foreign rule. It is a lock-up written into the code. The last sentence of the article shuts the door on clever drafting: “Toute clause contraire aux dispositions du présent article est réputée non écrite.”

B. What a refusal forces: buyout in three months, price under 1843-4, or the original sale goes through

A notified, timely, express refusal is not the end of the foreign seller’s exit. Article L. 223-14 continues: “Si la société a refusé de consentir à la cession, les associés sont tenus, dans le délai de trois mois à compter de ce refus, d’acquérir ou de faire acquérir les parts à un prix fixé dans les conditions prévues à l’article 1843-4 du code civil, sauf si le cédant renonce à la cession de ses parts. Les frais d’expertise sont à la charge de la société.” The associates — not the foreign buyer — then carry the file. They must buy, or find a buyer the company will accept, within three months of the refusal. The seller may walk away. If he does not walk away, he is entitled to a price, not to an endless “we are thinking”.

Article 1843-4, I, of the civil code is the price machinery: “Dans les cas où la loi renvoie au présent article pour fixer les conditions de prix d’une cession des droits sociaux d’un associé, ou le rachat de ceux-ci par la société, la valeur de ces droits est déterminée, en cas de contestation, par un expert désigné, soit par les parties, soit à défaut d’accord entre elles, par jugement du président du tribunal judiciaire ou du tribunal de commerce compétent, statuant selon la procédure accélérée au fond et sans recours possible.” The expert “est tenu d’appliquer, lorsqu’elles existent, les règles et modalités de détermination de la valeur prévues par les statuts de la société ou par toute convention liant les parties.” A foreign SPA that already contains a valuation formula is not decorative. The expert must apply it if it exists. A bylaw formula likewise. Only if there is a dispute on value does the president of the competent court appoint the expert, by accelerated proceedings on the merits, with no appeal against that appointment. Article R. 223-11 adds that this designation is made by the president of the commercial court, and that he also rules, without appeal, on an extension of the three-month period (by ordonnance on request) and on the case in the fourth paragraph of L. 223-14 (by référé).

The company itself may step in. With the seller’s consent, it may, in the same three months, “réduire son capital du montant de la valeur nominale des parts de cet associé et de racheter ces parts au prix déterminé dans les conditions prévues ci-dessus.” A court may, on justification, give the company up to two years to pay, with interest at the commercial legal rate. That is a recapitalisation and a buy-back, not a gift. It must be decided collectively and filed. It is not available as a unilateral freeze of the foreign seller.

If, at the end of the allotted time, none of those solutions has occurred, “l’associé peut réaliser la cession initialement prévue.” The foreign buyer who was refused then takes the parts on the original terms. That is the sanction of a refusal that was not followed by a buyout. Associates who refuse in order to “block the American” and then do nothing for three months have approved the American by inaction. The gérant may ask the court to extend the three months, “sans que cette prolongation puisse excéder six mois.” An extension is a court decision, not an email from counsel.

Until the transfer is in writing and published, the buyer is not an associate toward third parties. Article L. 223-17 sends the form of the transfer back to article L. 221-14: “La cession des parts sociales doit être constatée par écrit. Elle est rendue opposable à la société, dans les formes prévues à l’article 1690 du code civil.” Signification to the company may be replaced by deposit of an original of the deed at the registered office against the gérant’s receipt. “Elle n’est opposable aux tiers qu’après accomplissement de ces formalités et, en outre, après publication des statuts modifiés au registre du commerce et des sociétés ; ce dépôt peut être effectué par voie électronique.” Article 1690 of the code civil still states that the assignee “n’est saisi à l’égard des tiers que par la signification du transport faite au débiteur”, with the alternative of an authentic acceptance. For a SARL, L. 221-14 is the practical route: writing, deposit or signification, then INPI / RCS publication of the amended bylaws. A foreign buyer who has paid the price into escrow but has no published bylaws is not yet on the Kbis, and the bank will say so.

II. How a foreign buyer or seller contests a blocked or fake agrément

A. Who may invoke a defective agrément after the Cour de cassation of 11 February 2026

The usual late argument from sellers who have changed their minds is that the agrément was “not regular”: no extraordinary meeting, no written consultation, the gérant was not yet an associate, the company was not yet incorporated. The Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 11 February 2026, n° 24-18.698, closed two of those doors.

First, the quality of associate does not wait for the Kbis or even for the paying-up of the capital. The Court held that the court of appeal had violated articles L. 223-2 and L. 223-6 of the code de commerce “alors que la signature des statuts suffit à conférer aux signataires la qualité d’associé, lesquels sont, dès lors, en mesure de s’engager en cette qualité nonobstant le fait, d’une part, que la société n’a pas encore été immatriculée, d’autre part, que les signataires n’ont pas libéré leur apport en capital”. Founders who signed the bylaws can agrée a foreign incoming associate even before the RCS extract exists. They cannot later pretend they had no power because the bank certificate of capital deposit came the next day.

Second, sellers who have already agrée in a promise of sale cannot unwind the deal by pleading their own failure to call a meeting. The Court of Appeal had refused specific performance because, it said, there had been no extraordinary decision agréeing the incoming associate, contrary to the bylaws and to article R. 223-12. The Cour de cassation quashed: “alors que les cédants ne pouvaient se soustraire aux obligations qu’ils avaient contractées dans les promesses de cession de parts sociales”. The people whose consent the statute requires are not free to invoke the inobservation of the very formalities they controlled. For a foreign buyer holding a signed promise, that holding is the litigation map: sue on the promise; do not accept a reconstructed “the meeting never happened” defence from the signatories of that promise.

The decision does not abolish R. 223-12. The gérant must still convene or consult. The company must still notify the seller by registered letter. What it abolishes is the tactical use of those rules by the sellers themselves. Other associates, or the company, may still have an interest in a regular meeting. A later creditor, or a later buyer of the same parts, may care whether the Kbis matches a valid agrément. The foreign buyer’s first read of 24-18.698 should therefore be precise: it is a shield against the sellers, not a licence to skip notification of the company and of every associate who is not a seller.

In a SAS (société par actions simplifiée), the default is the opposite. There is no statutory agrément. Article L. 227-14 only allows the bylaws to “soumettre toute cession d’actions à l’agrément préalable de la société”. If they do, article L. 227-15 is the sanction: “Toute cession effectuée en violation des clauses statutaires est nulle.” The Cour de cassation, commercial chamber, 21 June 2023, n° 21-25.952, recalled that sentence and added: “Ce texte ne régissant pas l’exclusion d’un associé et la cession forcée de ses actions qui en résulte, la nullité qu’il prévoit vise uniquement à sanctionner la violation de toute clause statutaire ayant pour objet la cession d’actions librement consentie par leur titulaire.” A transfer to a foreign buyer that ignores a SAS agrément clause is void. A void transfer never reached the INPI. The SAS case is therefore a bylaw-reading exercise, not the statutory three-month buyout of L. 223-14. Mixing the two codes is how files are lost.

B. SAS contrast, INPI filing, Paris greffe and what to put in the file

Once agrément is acquired — by vote, by tacit consent, or by the fallback of L. 223-14 after a refusal without buyout — the foreign buyer still needs a written deed, opposability to the company, and publication of the amended bylaws. That filing now goes through the INPI (Institut national de la propriété industrielle) guichet unique, the one-stop electronic counter that carries what used to be a paper deposit at the greffe (the commercial court’s registry). Sworn French translations of the foreign buyer’s corporate documents, and where required an apostille, remain the usual gate. The RBE (registre des bénéficiaires effectifs, the beneficial-owner register) must be updated in the same movement if the buyer, or the people who control the buyer, cross the beneficial-owner thresholds; a mismatch with the new Kbis is how French companies get frozen, as in the RBE blockage article.

If the SARL is a single-associate company selling to a foreign third party, L. 223-14’s multi-associate notice paragraph does not read the same way: the code distinguishes “Lorsque la société comporte plus d’un associé”. The agrément majority is then a conversation of the sole associate with himself, which is why many foreign groups use a SASU instead. Choosing SAS or SARL after a refused agrément is late. Choosing it before the first outside investor is the point of that comparison. In a SAS, article L. 227-9 still requires collective decisions, in the forms set by the bylaws, for operations that in a public limited company belong to the meetings, and “L’associé unique ne peut déléguer ses pouvoirs.” A local directeur who is not the président cannot agrée a buyer by email.

Litigation sits in the commercial court of the company’s siège social (registered office). The president of that court, or of the judicial court as article 1843-4 also allows, appoints the expert and hears the accelerated application. For a company with its siège in Paris, that is the Tribunal de commerce de Paris and, for some 1843-4 filings, the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris; the greffe that will later issue the new Kbis is the Paris greffe. In Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis or Val-de-Marne the court and greffe follow the département. The statute is national. The file is local. Documents that actually move a Paris file are pedestrian: the promise of sale, proof of the R. 223-11 notifications (registered slips or huissier / commissaire de justice certificates), the eight-day convening under R. 223-12 or the proof it never came, the registered letter of refusal if any, the bylaws, the current Kbis, the draft transfer deed, and, if value is disputed, the 1843-4 application. A foreign power of attorney to sign the deed must be in a form the greffe will take, usually with a sworn translation.

What not to do is as important as the clock. Do not treat a “we object” email as a refusal that starts the buyout period if the company was never notified in the R. 223-11 form. Do not pay the price to the sellers personally before agrément, then discover the associates have refused and the two-year lock-up applies. Do not file an INPI transfer while agrément is still open: the greffe will reject it or, worse, register a transfer that L. 227-15 would have voided in a SAS. Do not let the three months after a real refusal expire without either an expert, a buyout, a court extension or a completion of the original sale. And do not accept, after Cass. 24-18.698, a reconstruction by the sellers that they “were not associates yet” when they signed the promise.

URSSAF, the SIE and the bank will all read the Kbis, not the term sheet. Until the amended bylaws are published, the foreign buyer is not the associate they will talk to. The three-month agrément clock and the INPI clock are therefore two clocks. The first is in L. 223-14. The second is the one-month logic of commercial-registry filings for a change already decided. Mixing them produces a buyer who has “won” agrément on paper and still cannot open the account.

Conclusion

A SARL may refuse a foreign buyer. It may not disappear the seller. Article L. 223-14 requires notice to the company and to each associate, in the R. 223-11 form; eight days for the gérant to convene or consult under R. 223-12; three months before silence becomes consent; and, after a real refusal, three months for the associates to buy or have the parts bought at an 1843-4 price, failing which the original sale may proceed. A clause that tries to write that scheme out is deemed unwritten. A seller who has not held the parts for two years cannot force the buyout, except in the family cases the code lists. In a SAS the agrément exists only if the bylaws say so, and a transfer that ignores that clause is void under L. 227-15. The Cour de cassation of 11 February 2026 added that signing the bylaws already makes a founder an associate, and that sellers cannot shed a promise of sale by pleading the meeting they failed to call. The foreign buyer’s file is therefore a sequence: valid notice, a decision or a silence, a buyout or a completion, a written deed, a deposit or signification, an INPI publication, a new Kbis and a consistent RBE. Anything short of that sequence is still a blocked transfer, whatever the term sheet says.

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The firm advises companies in Paris and Île-de-France, including before the Tribunal de commerce de Paris and the commercial courts of the inner suburbs.