The French bank does not say that your country manager is a fraud. It says the signature on the facility, the lease or the SEPA mandate does not match the Kbis (extrait Kbis, the official extract from the registre du commerce et des sociétés, RCS, the commercial and companies register). The person who runs the Paris office day to day is not the président (president) of the SAS (société par actions simplifiée, the simplified joint-stock company that most foreign groups use) and is not a gérant (manager) of the SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, the limited-liability company). Until that gap is closed, the account stays blocked, the landlord will not hand over the keys, and the notary (notaire) will not complete the deed.

This is not the same problem as installing a Delaware or Delaware-style parent as président of the SAS, which turns on the permanent representative and is treated in a separate guide. It is not the claim that the foreign parent has become a dirigeant de fait (de facto director) by running the subsidiary from abroad, which is a different liability. The formation path, the first bank file and the first hire sit in the pillar on setting up a French company as a foreign founder. What follows is the signature itself: what French law lets a remote président or gérant give to a local manager, which document the greffe (the commercial court’s registry) will put on the Kbis, which document is only a private power of attorney, and who remains in the firing line if the local signatory exceeds the mandate or if you keep deciding everything from New York or London.

I. How do you give a local manager a signature that the bank and the greffe will accept?

A. What the président of an SAS, or the gérant of an SARL, can actually delegate

The first paper to open is not the bank’s onboarding checklist. It is the bylaws (statuts) of the French company. For a SAS, article L. 227-5 of the Commercial Code is short and mandatory: “Les statuts fixent les conditions dans lesquelles la société est dirigée.” The bylaws, and only the bylaws, say who may be appointed, how, and with which title. The Cour de cassation (France’s highest ordinary court), commercial chamber, spelled out the consequence on 12 October 2022, pourvoi no. 21-15.382: “Il résulte de la combinaison des articles L. 227-1 et L. 227-5 du code de commerce que les statuts de la société par actions simplifiée fixent les conditions dans lesquelles la société est dirigée, notamment les modalités de révocation de son directeur général. Si les actes extra-statutaires peuvent compléter ces statuts, ils ne peuvent y déroger.” A side letter, a board minute of the foreign parent, or an English “scheme of delegation” that contradicts the French bylaws does not rewrite them. Read the bylaws before you promise the bank a local signatory.

Representation toward third parties is a different sentence. Article L. 227-6 of the Commercial Code states: “La société est représentée à l’égard des tiers par un président désigné dans les conditions prévues par les statuts. Le président est investi des pouvoirs les plus étendus pour agir en toute circonstance au nom de la société dans la limite de l’objet social.” The same article then opens the door that foreign groups actually need: “Les statuts peuvent prévoir les conditions dans lesquelles une ou plusieurs personnes autres que le président, portant le titre de directeur général ou de directeur général délégué, peuvent exercer les pouvoirs confiés à ce dernier par le présent article. Les dispositions statutaires limitant les pouvoirs du président sont inopposables aux tiers.” A directeur général (general manager, DG) or directeur général délégué (deputy general manager, DGD) is therefore not a courtesy title. If the bylaws allow the appointment and the person is filed, that person exercises the statutory power to bind the company toward third parties. Internal caps (“no lease above 50,000 euros without the parent’s consent”) do not protect the company against the bank or the landlord who did not know of them. Publication of the bylaws alone is not knowledge.

The chambre mixte of the Cour de cassation, on 19 November 2010, pourvoi no. 10-30.215, published in the Bulletin, refused the idea that only the président or a statutory DG may ever sign. After quoting article L. 227-6, it held: “si, selon le premier de ces textes, la société par actions simplifiée est représentée à l’égard des tiers par son président et, si ses statuts le prévoient, par un directeur général ou un directeur général délégué dont la nomination est soumise à publicité, cette règle n’exclut pas la possibilité, pour ces représentants légaux, de déléguer le pouvoir d’effectuer des actes déterminés tel que celui d’engager ou de licencier les salariés de l’entreprise.” A limited délégation de pouvoirs (delegation of powers) for determined acts is therefore lawful even when you do not put the local manager on the Kbis as DG. The case was a dismissal letter signed by a sector head and a sales head. The court of appeal had annulled the dismissal because the signatories were not the président. The chambre mixte quashed that reasoning. The bank that asks “is he on the Kbis?” is asking a practical question, not the only legal question.

A SARL is built differently. Article L. 223-18 of the Commercial Code requires the company to be managed by one or more natural persons: “La société à responsabilité limitée est gérée par une ou plusieurs personnes physiques.” A US corporation cannot be gérant. Toward third parties the gérant has the same wide power: “Dans les rapports avec les tiers, le gérant est investi des pouvoirs les plus étendus pour agir en toute circonstance au nom de la société, sous réserve des pouvoirs que la loi attribue expressément aux associés.” And: “Les clauses statutaires limitant les pouvoirs des gérants qui résultent du présent article sont inopposables aux tiers.” The commercial chamber repeated the inopposability rule on 9 January 2019, pourvoi no. 16-26.697: “en application de l’article L. 223-18 code de commerce, les clauses limitant les pouvoirs du gérant sont inopposables aux tiers.” If the foreign owner wants a second signatory inside a SARL, the clean statutory route is a second gérant appointed under the bylaws, not a private English power of attorney that the greffe has never seen. A private mandate remains possible, but it will not appear on the Kbis unless the person has the habitual power to bind the company and is declared as such.

That declaration sits in the RCS rules. Article R. 123-54 of the Commercial Code requires the company to declare, according to its form, the identity of “Gérants, présidents, directeurs généraux, directeurs généraux délégués, membres du directoire, président du directoire ou, le cas échéant, directeur général unique, associés et tiers ayant le pouvoir de diriger, gérer ou engager à titre habituel la société avec l’indication, pour chacun d’eux lorsqu’il s’agit d’une société commerciale, qu’ils engagent seuls ou conjointement la société vis-à-vis des tiers.” A one-off power to sign a single lease is not “à titre habituel” (on a habitual basis). A standing authority to operate the bank account, hire, and sign supplier contracts is. The greffe and the bank read that line more strictly than group charts do. If the local manager signs every week, the honest filing is a DG, a DGD, a second gérant, or a person with habitual power, not a silent mandate kept in a drawer in Delaware.

What cannot be delegated is equally concrete. The président of a SAS remains the legal representative for the acts the law attaches to that office: the filing of accounts, the statement of insolvency, many tax and social declarations. A SARL gérant cannot hand the associates’ reserved powers to an employee. A delegation that tries to empty the office — “the country manager shall have all powers of the président” — is not a determined act in the sense of the 2010 chambre mixte decision. It is an attempt to appoint a DG without saying so, and without the publicity that article L. 227-6 attaches to that title. The INPI (Institut national de la propriété industrielle) guichet unique (the one-stop electronic counter that now carries RCS filings) will not invent a DG that the bylaws do not allow. The bank that has already refused a file because there is no French-resident director is asking a related but distinct question, treated in the guide on a French bank account refused where no director lives in France.

B. The two packages banks ask for: a Kbis appointment versus a limited power of attorney

In practice there are two files, and foreign groups mix them up. The first is a statutory appointment that the RCS will publish. The second is a civil-law mandate (mandat or procuration, a power of attorney) that binds the company only within its four corners, and only if the agent actually had the power or if the company later ratifies.

The statutory package, for a SAS whose bylaws already provide for a DG or a DGD, is a corporate decision, a legal notice, and a filing. Infogreffe’s formality guide, which still describes the greffe’s documentary standard even though the filing itself now goes through the guichet unique, states that from 1 January 2025, under article 1 of law no. 2019-486, creation, amendment, striking-off and the filing of deeds at the RCS “doivent être réalisées exclusivement sur le site guichet unique mis en œuvre par l’INPI” at formalites.entreprises.gouv.fr. The prior steps it lists are an general meeting (assemblée générale) where the bylaws require one, and publication of a modification notice in a support for legal announcements (support d’annonces légales), indicating the incoming and outgoing DG. The file must enclose a certified copy of the decision, proof of publication, and, for the new DG, a copy of a valid passport, national identity card or residence permit whose status allows RCS registration, plus an original sworn statement of non-conviction (déclaration sur l’honneur de non-condamnation) with parentage, which the judge assigned to the RCS checks against the criminal record. Infogreffe quotes a registry tariff of 173.97 euros for that change. Those are greffe figures, not a lawyer’s fee, and they move. The point for a foreign président is the calendar: a bank that wants “the new Kbis next week” is asking for a decision, a notice, a complete INPI file and the greffe’s processing time, not a PDF of an English board resolution.

If the bylaws are silent on a DG, you cannot skip the amendment. Article L. 227-6 lets “the bylaws” provide for persons other than the président. Until they do, the only statutory representative toward third parties is the président. Amending the bylaws of a SAS is a collective decision under the majority the bylaws fix, then a second legal notice and a second INPI filing. Groups that try to “appoint a DG by parent resolution only” collide with the 12 October 2022 holding: extra-statutory acts may complete the bylaws, they may not derogate from them. The cheaper-looking shortcut becomes a rejected file and a month lost.

The private-mandate package is lighter on the RCS and heavier on proof. Article 1984 of the Civil Code defines it without mystery: “Le mandat ou procuration est un acte par lequel une personne donne à une autre le pouvoir de faire quelque chose pour le mandant et en son nom. Le contrat ne se forme que par l’acceptation du mandataire.” Article 1985 adds that the mandate “peut être donné par acte authentique ou par acte sous seing privé, même par lettre. Il peut aussi être donné verbalement”, with the usual limits on oral proof. Acceptance may be tacit and result from performance. Article 1998 then allocates the risk: “Le mandant est tenu d’exécuter les engagements contractés par le mandataire, conformément au pouvoir qui lui a été donné. Il n’est tenu de ce qui a pu être fait au-delà, qu’autant qu’il l’a ratifié expressément ou tacitement.” A power that lists the bank, the account, the maximum amount and the term is a mandate. A power that says “all powers to manage the French company” is an invitation to a de facto-director debate and to a bank’s compliance team to refuse it.

French banks in Paris rarely accept a raw PDF emailed from abroad. They ask for an original or a certified copy, a signature that matches the président’s passport, and, where the power was signed outside France, an apostille under the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 or a consular legalisation, plus a sworn French translation (traduction assermentée) if the instrument is in English. The greffe will not put that private power on the Kbis. The bank may still operate on it for a named account, for a named maximum, for a named period. The landlord of a 3-6-9 commercial lease in Paris will often refuse anything short of a Kbis that names the signatory or a notarised power with apostille. The Tribunal de commerce de Paris and the greffe of Paris apply the same INPI channel as the rest of the country; the practical difference is volume and the bank’s KYC (know-your-customer) template, which in Île-de-France is written for a Kbis that already lists a natural person with power to bind.

Choosing the package is a commercial decision with a legal floor. If the local manager will sign once — one lease, one acquisition, one tax election — a determined mandate, apostilled and translated, matches the 2010 chambre mixte formula (“actes déterminés”). If the same person will sign payroll, supplier contracts and the bank every week, article R. 123-54 is the floor: habitual power must be declared. Appointing a DG or a second gérant also changes social security. A remunerated DG of a SAS is in principle an assimilé salarié (treated as an employee for social security) of the general regime; an unpaid mandate can still trigger URSSAF (Union de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the body that collects social contributions) questions. That cost is not a reason to hide a habitual signatory off the Kbis. It is a reason to budget the affiliation before the appointment letter goes out.

For a SARL with a single foreign gérant who never comes to France, the options are narrower. You may appoint a second natural person as co-gérant if the bylaws allow it; each gérant then binds the company separately under article L. 223-18, and an objection by one is ineffective against third parties who did not know of it. You may issue a limited mandate. You may not install the US parent as gérant. You may not assume that a local “country manager” employment contract carries the power to bind the company. The employment contract organises subordination. The power to bind organises representation. Mixing the two is how a signature becomes a requalification file and a social-security bill.

II. What happens when the signature is challenged, or the delegation backfires?

A. Apparent authority, a missing quality on the document, and how to contest a refusal

The document that the local manager signed is not void merely because the Kbis was silent. French law now states the apparent-authority rule in the Civil Code. Article 1156 provides: “L’acte accompli par un représentant sans pouvoir ou au-delà de ses pouvoirs est inopposable au représenté, sauf si le tiers contractant a légitimement cru en la réalité des pouvoirs du représentant, notamment en raison du comportement ou des déclarations du représenté. Lorsqu’il ignorait que l’acte était accompli par un représentant sans pouvoir ou au-delà de ses pouvoirs, le tiers contractant peut en invoquer la nullité. L’inopposabilité comme la nullité de l’acte ne peuvent plus être invoquées dès lors que le représenté l’a ratifié.” The company can therefore be bound even without a valid mandate, if the counterparty’s belief was legitimate in light of the company’s own behaviour. The counterparty who did not know of the defect can ask for nullity. Ratification kills both arguments.

The commercial chamber applied that logic to a SARL on 9 March 2022, pourvoi no. 19-25.704. The company argued that only the gérant can bind a SARL and that the publicity of the appointment excludes apparent authority. The court answered: “le seul fait que la nomination et la cessation des fonctions de gérant de société à responsabilité limitée soient soumises à des règles de publicité légale ne suffit pas à exclure qu’une telle société puisse être engagée sur le fondement d’un mandat apparent.” It then restated the test under articles 1985 and 1998: “une personne peut être engagée sur le fondement d’un mandat apparent lorsque la croyance du tiers aux pouvoirs du prétendu mandataire a été légitime, ce caractère supposant que les circonstances autorisaient ce tiers à ne pas vérifier lesdits pouvoirs.” In that case the employee was the only contact, wrote “pour Cofimo”, used “nous”, and received mail at the company’s address. The court of appeal could find a legitimate belief. The foreign président who lets the local manager use the company letterhead, the company email and the words “we confirm” without a written mandate is building the same file, whether or not the bank has seen a Kbis.

The opposite defect is a document that does not even claim to be signed for the company. On 11 October 2023, pourvoi no. 22-12.946, the commercial chamber, construing article L. 227-6, held: “Il résulte de ce texte que le dirigeant d’une société n’engage celle-ci que par les actes qu’il accomplit en qualité de mandataire social. A défaut de mention de cette qualité dans l’acte, il appartient au tiers contractant de faire la preuve que le dirigeant a eu et manifesté la volonté d’agir au nom et pour le compte de la société.” A président who signs a termination letter, a settlement or a side letter in his own name, without stating the office, does not bind the SAS unless the counterparty proves the intention to act for the company. The local manager who signs “John Smith” with no title and no company name is in the same hole. The first drafting rule is therefore banal and decisive: name the company, name the office or the mandate, and attach the Kbis or the power.

Contesting a bank refusal is a document exercise, not a speech. Ask the bank, in writing, which legal rule or internal policy it relies on, and whether it wants a Kbis that names a DG, a notarised power, or both. Put the current Kbis, the bylaws, the appointment decision or the power, the legal notice if any, and the signatory’s identification in one PDF. If the greffe or the INPI has rejected a DG filing, the rejection letter will usually point to a missing non-conviction statement, a missing notice, a bylaw that does not allow a DG, or a residence permit that does not allow RCS registration. Fix that defect. Do not file the same pack twice. If the bank persists after a Kbis that names the signatory, the next step is the bank’s complaints service and, where the relationship falls under the right to an account, the Banque de France path described for individuals; a company account is not the same statutory right, and the leverage is the completeness of the RCS file plus, if needed, a formal notice (mise en demeure) before the Tribunal de commerce de Paris or the commercial court of the company’s seat.

If a contract has already been signed by someone without power, the foreign owner has three honest moves. Ratify under articles 1156 and 1998, in a dated instrument that identifies the act. Renegotiate and replace the signature with a person who has power. Or plead inopposability, knowing that article 1156 will not help if the company’s own emails and letterhead fed the counterparty’s belief. The group that stays silent while the local manager performs the contract is ratifying by performance. That is sometimes the right commercial outcome. It is a disaster if the act was a guarantee, a related-party transfer, or an admission in a tax or URSSAF audit.

Paris and Île-de-France add logistics, not a different Civil Code. The Tribunal de commerce de Paris, the greffe of Paris, and the INPI’s processing of Paris files are the usual channel for companies seated in the capital. Nanterre, Bobigny, Créteil and Évry have their own commercial courts for the inner suburbs. Banks with a large international desk in Paris are used to apostilles and sworn translations; smaller branches often are not. Build the file as if the greffe and the bank will both read it. A power signed in New York on Friday is not an operational signature in Paris on Monday.

B. Criminal liability, URSSAF and the de facto director trap if you keep deciding from abroad

A civil mandate does not wash the président out of criminal or social-security exposure. French criminal case law on délégation de pouvoirs was built for workplace accidents and similar offences. It still governs the argument “I had delegated, so I am no longer the offender.” The criminal chamber of the Cour de cassation, on 6 January 2026, pourvoi no. 25-80.542, left standing a court of appeal that had refused to treat a subcontracted delegation as effective. After noting insufficient means and a job description that did not match the delegated safety mission, the Court wrote: “En se déterminant par des motifs dont il résulte que M. [E] était dépourvu de la compétence, de l’autorité et des moyens nécessaires à l’accomplissement de sa mission et que Mme [P] avait conservé son pouvoir de direction, la cour d’appel a justifié sa décision.” Three conditions appear in that sentence: competence, authority, means. A fourth fact kills the delegation: the grantor kept the power of direction. A foreign président who “delegates” health and safety, anti-corruption or URSSAF filings to a local manager, then continues to approve every hire and every invoice from abroad, has not delegated in the criminal sense. The local title on a business card is not a defence.

Civil liability of SAS officers is borrowed from the société anonyme. Article L. 227-8 of the Commercial Code states: “Les règles fixant la responsabilité des membres du conseil d’administration et du directoire des sociétés anonymes sont applicables au président et aux dirigeants de la société par actions simplifiée.” Article L. 225-251 then provides that directors and the directeur général “sont responsables individuellement ou solidairement selon le cas, envers la société ou envers les tiers, soit des infractions aux dispositions législatives ou réglementaires applicables aux sociétés anonymes, soit des violations des statuts, soit des fautes commises dans leur gestion.” Appointing a DG does not erase the président’s management fault. It adds another officer who can be sued for his own fault. The parent that wanted “someone local to sign, without anyone being liable” is asking for a status French law does not sell.

Criminal company-law offences follow the same mapping. Article L. 244-1 of the Commercial Code applies articles L. 242-1 to L. 242-6, L. 242-8 and L. 242-17 to L. 242-24 to the SAS, and adds: “Les peines prévues pour le président, les administrateurs ou les directeurs généraux des sociétés anonymes sont applicables au président et aux dirigeants des sociétés par actions simplifiées.” Article L. 242-6 punishes, among other things, the président, directors or DGs of a SA who, in bad faith, make of the company’s assets or credit “un usage qu’ils savent contraire à l’intérêt de celle-ci, à des fins personnelles ou pour favoriser une autre société ou entreprise dans laquelle ils sont intéressés directement ou indirectement” — the misuse of company assets (abus de biens sociaux). For a SARL, article L. 241-3 says the same of the gérants. Article L. 241-9 then extends those SARL offences “à toute personne qui, directement ou par personne interposée, aura, en fait, exercé la gestion d’une société à responsabilité limitée sous le couvert ou au lieu et place de son gérant légal.” A local manager who is “only an employee” on paper, but who in fact runs the SARL in place of the foreign gérant, can be pursued as if he were the legal manager. The foreign gérant who let that happen is not safer.

That is the hinge with de facto management. A valid, limited, published delegation is the opposite of hidden management: it says who may sign, for which acts, and it puts the name on the Kbis or on a dated power. A standing practice in which the parent’s CFO approves every payment, writes every email to the French bank, and treats the local manager as a mailbox, is the fact pattern of a dirigeant de fait claim, developed in the guide on contesting de facto-director liability. The two files are often opened together in an insolvency. The liquidator will ask who actually decided. A DG who had competence, authority and means, and who is on the Kbis, is an answer. A private English “matrix of authority” that nobody in Paris has seen is not.

URSSAF and the tax authorities still write to the legal representative. The DG’s affiliation to the general regime, if he is paid, does not move the company’s employer account. Missed DSN (déclaration sociale nominative, the nominative social declaration) filings, unpaid contributions, and a constraint (contrainte) served at the registered office will name the company and, in recovery, the representative on the Kbis. Delegating “HR” without giving the local manager a budget, access to the net-entreprises account and the power to pay is the 6 January 2026 fact pattern in social-security clothing: no means, no effective delegation, the grantor kept the direction. If the président is itself a foreign company, article L. 227-7 pulls the parent’s own officers into the same civil and criminal conditions unless a permanent representative has been organised, as explained in the permanent-representative article.

Revocation is the last operational risk. Article 2003 of the Civil Code ends a mandate by revocation, renunciation, death, adult guardianship or insolvency of either party. A statutory DG of a SAS is revoked as the bylaws provide; the 12 October 2022 decision confirms that those bylaw rules cannot be rewritten by a side letter. Publish the cessation on the RCS with the same care as the appointment. A bank that still honours the signature of a revoked DG, and a counterparty who still has the old Kbis, will plead apparent authority under article 1156. The company that forgot to file the departure has fed that belief. The foreign président who flies in, signs a revocation, and leaves the Kbis unchanged for six weeks has not finished the job.

Conclusion

French law does not require the président of a SAS to live in France, and it does not require every signature to be his. Article L. 227-6 lets the bylaws create a DG or a DGD who binds the company toward third parties; the chambre mixte of 19 November 2010 lets the legal representatives delegate determined acts even without that title; article R. 123-54 requires habitual power to be declared on the RCS. A SARL is stricter on who may be gérant and just as strict on inopposability of internal limits, as the commercial chamber recalled in 2019. The bank that refuses the local manager is usually asking for a Kbis line or a determined, apostilled mandate, not for a philosophical essay on group governance. The file that answers it is the bylaws, the appointment or the power, the legal notice, the INPI filing, and a signature block that states the company and the office. The file that fails is an English matrix, a silent country manager, and a président who still decides every payment from abroad. Apparent authority under article 1156 and the 9 March 2022 decision can then bind the company against its will; criminal delegation fails where competence, authority and means are missing and the grantor kept the direction, as the criminal chamber held on 6 January 2026. Before the next refusal letter, put the current Kbis, the bylaws and the instrument you thought was enough in front of a French lawyer, and decide whether the local person should be on the extract or only in a dated power.

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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.