You formed a French SAS (société par actions simplifiée, a simplified joint-stock company) or SARL (société à responsabilité limitée, a private limited company). The président (chair of a SAS) or gérant (manager of a SARL) lives in London, New York, Dubai or Singapore. Day-to-day bookkeeping was left with a French expert-comptable (chartered accountant, a regulated professional enrolled on the tableau of the Ordre des experts-comptables). Then the relationship breaks. Unpaid invoices pile up. The accountant stops answering. The FEC (fichier des écritures comptables, the standardised electronic journal the tax office can demand) never arrives. The INPI (Institut national de la propriété industrielle, which now runs the Guichet unique des formalités des entreprises, the one-stop electronic shop for company filings) still shows the accountant as mandataire (filing agent). Annual accounts cannot be approved. A bank asks for an updated Kbis (extrait Kbis, the official extract from the registre du commerce et des sociétés, the RCS, the trade and companies register) and nobody can generate the filing. This article is written for that foreign owner. It explains what the accountant may lawfully retain, what still belongs to the company, how to demand restitution from abroad, how a référé (emergency court application) works when fees are disputed, how to terminate the lettre de mission (engagement letter) without walking into a contractual penalty, and how to keep the legal calendar alive while a successor takes over. It complements our general guide on setting up a company in France as a foreign founder.

I. How do I recover my French company’s books and INPI login if the accountant blocks them

A. What may the accountant keep, and what still belongs to the company

The starting point is not the accountant’s software. It is the company’s own duty. Article L. 123-12 of the code de commerce (Commercial Code) states: “Toute personne physique ou morale ayant la qualité de commerçant doit procéder à l’enregistrement comptable des mouvements affectant le patrimoine de son entreprise.” A SAS or SARL that trades is a commerçant (trader). The same article requires a yearly inventory and annual accounts (bilan, compte de résultat and annexe) drawn from those records. The foreign owner who never sees the ledger is still the person the greffe, the tax office and the bank will treat as responsible for the file.

Article L. 123-22 of the same code adds two rules that matter the day the accountant goes silent. First: “Les documents comptables sont établis en euros et en langue française.” Second: “Les documents comptables et les pièces justificatives sont conservés pendant dix ans.” The Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, applied that ten-year limit strictly in its judgment of 24 April 2007, pourvoi n° 05-21.477, published in the Bulletin. It held that “il résulte de l’article L. 123-22 du code de commerce que les documents comptables et pièces justificatives n’ont pas à être conservés par un commerçant au-delà d’une durée de dix ans” (Cour de cassation, com., 24 April 2007, n° 05-21.477). The company must be able to produce the last ten years. It cannot hide behind a former adviser who “has the boxes”.

Who is an expert-comptable in the first place. Article 2 of ordonnance n° 45-2138 of 19 September 1945, which created the Ordre des experts-comptables and still governs the title, states: “Est expert comptable ou réviseur comptable au sens de la présente ordonnance celui qui fait profession habituelle de réviser et d’apprécier les comptabilités des entreprises et organismes auxquels il n’est pas lié par un contrat de travail.” The same article authorises the professional to keep, centralise, open, close, supervise, correct and consolidate accounts. That is a regulated liberal profession, not a commercial activity. Article 22 of the same ordonnance, in the version in force since 1 September 2024, opens with: “L’activité d’expertise comptable est incompatible avec toute occupation ou tout acte de nature à porter atteinte à l’indépendance de la personne qui l’exerce en particulier :” The Cour de cassation used that incompatibility to refuse the “sudden break of an established commercial relationship” regime to an accountant-client dispute. In its judgment of 10 February 2021, pourvoi n° 19-10.306, published in the Bulletin, it held that “il résulte de l’article 22 de l’ordonnance n° 45-2138 du 19 septembre 1945, portant institution de l’ordre des experts-comptables et réglementant le titre et la profession d’expert-comptable, modifiée par la loi n° 2010-853 du 23 juillet 2010, que l’activité d’expert-comptable est incompatible avec toute activité commerciale ou acte d’intermédiaire, à l’exception de ceux répondant à la double condition d’être réalisés à titre accessoire et de ne pas mettre en péril les règles d’indépendance et de déontologie de la profession”, and that the court of appeal was right to hold that the former article L. 442-6, I, 5° of the code de commerce “n’étaient pas applicables aux relations ayant existé entre la société SMI et la société AGSC” (Cour de cassation, com., 10 February 2021, n° 19-10.306). A foreign parent that simply stops calling the French accountant does not face that commercial-law penalty. It still faces the engagement letter, which is a different trap, treated below.

Fees are not a percentage of the deal. Article 24 of ordonnance n° 45-2138, in the version in force since 24 May 2019, states: “Ces honoraires doivent être équitables et constituer la juste rémunération du travail fourni comme du service rendu.” It adds: “Leur montant et leurs modalités sont convenus par écrit avec les clients librement et préalablement à l’exercice des missions.” The Cour de cassation, première chambre civile, sitting in a formation that publishes its decisions, applied that text to a Luxembourg company that had used a French accountant on a share sale. In its judgment of 6 April 2022, pourvoi n° 21-12.045, it quoted the article and held: “Selon ce texte, les honoraires de l’expert-comptable doivent constituer la juste rémunération du travail fourni comme du service rendu et ne peuvent en aucun cas être calculés d’après les résultats financiers obtenus par les clients.” It drew the consequence: “Il en résulte qu’un contrat conclu entre un expert-comptable et son client, en ce qu’il fixe les honoraires dus en fonction de tels résultats, est illicite et, partant, nul, de sorte que le montant des honoraires dus à l’expert-comptable doit être déterminé en fonction du travail fourni et du service rendu” (Cour de cassation, 1re civ., 6 April 2022, n° 21-12.045). A foreign founder who signed a “success fee” on a French fundraising or an exit can treat that clause as void. The work still has to be paid at a fair quantum. The Cour de cassation, chambre commerciale, said so again on 20 September 2023, pourvoi n° 21-25.386, published in the Bulletin: when the principle of the fee is established, the court “devait en fixer le montant” and may not refuse to assess it for want of timesheets (Cour de cassation, com., 20 September 2023, n° 21-25.386).

Retention is the daily crisis. Article 2286 of the code civil (Civil Code) states: “Peut se prévaloir d’un droit de rétention sur la chose : 1° Celui à qui la chose a été remise jusqu’au paiement de sa créance ; 2° Celui dont la créance impayée résulte du contrat qui l’oblige à la livrer ; 3° Celui dont la créance impayée est née à l’occasion de la détention de la chose ; 4° Celui qui bénéficie d’un gage sans dépossession.” The last sentence is the practical limit: “Le droit de rétention se perd par le dessaisissement volontaire.” French first-instance courts treat unpaid-fee retention over the accountant’s own work product as a serious defence in summary proceedings. The Tribunal des activités économiques de Paris (the Paris economic-activities court, which succeeded the tribunal de commerce de Paris for many commercial disputes) illustrated the trap on 12 June 2026 (RG 2026008009). The president declined to order delivery of accounting documents where the firm invoked unpaid fees and the client companies disputed a tariff increase: the fee fight was treated as a contestation sérieuse (a serious dispute) that shut the summary jurisdiction. That order is not a Cour de cassation ruling. If the only claim is a demand for the 2024 closing file while invoices remain unpaid and the amount is contested, a summary judge may refuse to act.

The foreign owner should therefore split the request. Original pièces justificatives (invoices, bank statements, contracts, payroll slips) that the company handed over remain the company’s property; they were “remise” to the professional for a mission, they are not the fruit of the professional’s own work, and article L. 123-22 requires the company itself to keep them for ten years. Working papers, draft closing files and software entries produced by the firm are the usual field of retention while a fee remains unpaid. The letter of demand should list both categories, ask for the FEC in a usable electronic format, ask for the last signed accounts, the last tax returns, the last social declarations, and the credentials or a written discharge for the Guichet unique. Paying an undisputed slice of the fees, or consigning the disputed slice with a sequester, often unlocks the file faster than a hearing. Article 1217 of the code civil lists the civil-law toolbox when a party does not perform: “La partie envers laquelle l’engagement n’a pas été exécuté, ou l’a été imparfaitement, peut : – refuser d’exécuter ou suspendre l’exécution de sa propre obligation ; – poursuivre l’exécution forcée en nature de l’obligation ; – obtenir une réduction du prix ; – provoquer la résolution du contrat ; – demander réparation des conséquences de l’inexécution.” Retention is the accountant’s version of the first bullet. Forced delivery, price reduction, termination and damages are the company’s. They can be combined. They are not a substitute for a dated inventory of what is missing.

B. How to demand restitution and reopen the guichet unique from abroad

The first document is still the lettre de mission, with its annexes and fee schedule. Article 24 of the 1945 ordonnance requires the amount and the terms to be agreed in writing before the work starts. If there is no signed letter, the Cour de cassation still allows the court to fix a fair fee for work that was in fact performed (n° 21-25.386). The foreign owner should collect: the letter, every unpaid invoice, every email in which the accountant admitted holding the FEC or the INPI login, the last Kbis, the last approved accounts, and a table of statutory deadlines that are now blocked (accounts approval, corporate-tax return, VAT CA3, RBE update). That table is the urgency file for a référé.

Send a formal notice from the company’s président or gérant, or from a lawyer acting under a written power of attorney (procuration, with an apostille if the document is signed outside France and the addressee asks for one). Ask for a complete inventory within a short, dated period. Distinguish originals, copies, electronic files and access rights. Ask for delivery to the successor or to a named French address, not only “to the client abroad”. Offer to pay any sum that is not seriously disputed, or to consign it. Article 1103 of the code civil is short: “Les contrats légalement formés tiennent lieu de loi à ceux qui les ont faits.” The engagement letter binds both sides. Silence after a formal notice is useful later, when the judge asks who tried to unlock the file.

If nothing moves, the emergency route is a référé. Before the tribunal judiciaire (ordinary civil court), article 834 of the code de procédure civile (Code of Civil Procedure) states: “Dans tous les cas d’urgence, le président du tribunal judiciaire ou le juge des contentieux de la protection dans les limites de sa compétence, peuvent ordonner en référé toutes les mesures qui ne se heurtent à aucune contestation sérieuse ou que justifie l’existence d’un différend.” Before the president of the commercial or economic-activities court, article 873 of the same code goes further: “Le président peut, dans les mêmes limites, et même en présence d’une contestation sérieuse, prescrire en référé les mesures conservatoires ou de remise en état qui s’imposent, soit pour prévenir un dommage imminent, soit pour faire cesser un trouble manifestement illicite.” The second sentence is the one foreign owners actually need: “Dans les cas où l’existence de l’obligation n’est pas sérieusement contestable, il peut accorder une provision au créancier, ou ordonner l’exécution de l’obligation même s’il s’agit d’une obligation de faire.” Delivery of the FEC, of original bank statements and of the last tax returns is an obligation de faire. It is easier to obtain when the fee is paid or consigned, and when the company shows a concrete statutory deadline: a six-month accounts meeting, a tax-audit notice, a bank that will close the account, a Guichet unique filing that cannot wait. If the fee itself is the whole dispute, the Paris order of 12 June 2026 shows the risk: the judge may find a contestation sérieuse and stay his hand. The application should therefore attach proof of payment or consignment, the inventory, and the harm (missed filing, frozen account, personal exposure of the director).

The Guichet unique is a separate lock. Article L. 123-33 of the code de commerce requires every enterprise, subject to limited exceptions, to declare “sa création, la modification de sa situation ou la cessation de ses activités” by filing “un seul dossier” electronically with “un organisme unique désigné à cet effet”. That organism is the INPI. The official Entreprendre.Service-Public page on the Guichet des formalités des entreprises describes the portal as the single electronic channel for those filings. In practice the first accountant often created the INPI account, stored the identifiant, and filed as mandataire. The INPI’s own pages on services to mandataires explain that professionals (including experts-comptables) can file for clients. They do not say the legal representative is locked out. The président or gérant named on the Kbis can open or recover a personal INPI account, prove identity, and file in the company’s name. If the former mandataire still appears on a pending dossier, the new filing should attach the revocation of the mandate and, where the greffe asks for it, the decision that replaced the accountant. Do not wait for the former firm to “hand over the password”. The company is the declarant. The mandataire is only an agent.

Paris and Île-de-France add a practical layer. If the siège social (registered office) is in Paris, a référé against the accountant will often be issued before the tribunal judiciaire de Paris or, where the dispute is characterised as commercial between two sociétés, before the Tribunal des activités économiques de Paris. If the siège is in Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis, Yvelines, Essonne, Val-d’Oise or Seine-et-Marne, the territorially competent judicial or commercial court follows the siège or, depending on the claim, the defendant’s registered office. Domiciliation addresses in the 8th or 9th arrondissement are common for foreign-owned SAS; registered letters from the greffe land there and expire. The foreign owner should give the lawyer a standing instruction to receive greffe and tax mail, and should check the Guichet unique mailbox, not only Gmail. A missed RBE update or a missed accounts filing is how a document dispute becomes a strike-off. Our article on the beneficial-owner (RBE) filing, court injunction and strike-off covers that second fire.

II. How do I end the engagement letter, appoint a successor and keep the legal calendar alive

A. How to terminate the lettre de mission without walking into a fee trap

Changing accountant is not a commercial “rupture brutale”. The Cour de cassation said so in n° 19-10.306, cited above. It is a contractual termination. The same judgment is the warning. The engagement letter in that case said the client could interrupt the mission only after informing the accountant “par lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception, trois mois avant la date de cessation, faute de quoi il devrait lui verser une indemnité égale à 25 % des honoraires pour l’exercice en cours”. The court of appeal had treated informal knowledge, and the fact that a new accountant was already preparing the accounts, as enough. The Cour de cassation disagreed. After recalling that “les conventions légalement formées tiennent lieu de loi à ceux qui les ont faites et doivent être exécutées de bonne foi”, it held that the court of appeal, “qui a refusé d’appliquer cette clause contractuelle, a violé le texte susvisé” (Cour de cassation, com., 10 February 2021, n° 19-10.306). A foreign owner who emails “we are moving the file next week” and lets the new firm start the closing can still owe a contractual exit indemnity if the letter required a registered letter and a three-month gap.

Read the letter before you appoint anyone else. Typical clauses, which must be checked in the actual document and not assumed, cover: duration of one accounting year, tacit renewal, notice of three months before the year-end, an indemnity of a percentage of the current year’s fees if notice is late, a clause on electronic files, and a clause on retention. Follow the form the letter itself imposes: registered letter with advice of receipt (lettre recommandée avec demande d’avis de réception) sent to the address in the letter, signed by the président or gérant who has power to bind the company, with a copy to the successor only after the notice has gone. If the letter is silent, ordinary civil-law termination under article 1217 remains available, including resolution for non-performance when the accountant has stopped delivering. Do not rely on “loss of confidence” as a magic phrase. Put the facts in the letter: unanswered requests for the FEC, missed filing dates, inflated invoices, a success-fee clause that n° 21-12.045 treats as void.

Unpaid fees still have to be faced. If the work was done, the court will assess a fair amount even without a timesheet, as n° 21-25.386 shows. If the work was not done, article 1217 supports a price reduction or damages, and a recent first-instance judgment of the tribunal de commerce de Montpellier of 7 September 2026, RG 2025012674, illustrates a fee fight after a mid-mission resignation on a lettre de mission, including a partial refund. That judgment is not binding precedent. It is a reminder that the letter, the annexes and the proof of what was actually delivered decide the money, not the atmosphere of the breakup. Penalty interest at 1.75 per cent per month was treated as a clause pénale (penalty clause) that the judge may moderate in the 2021 Cour de cassation case. A foreign owner who is quoted a “late-payment interest” at a punitive rate can ask the court to cut it. Paying or consigning the undisputed principal remains the fastest way to kill the retention argument.

The successor should not start in the dark. A professional handover usually includes: the FEC for open years, the last three (preferably ten) closing files, tax returns, social-declaration history, the fixed-asset register, the shareholder current-account ledger (compte courant d’associé), the share-movement register for a SAS, and a written statement of pending tax or URSSAF (Unions de recouvrement des cotisations de sécurité sociale et d’allocations familiales, the bodies that collect social charges) procedures. URSSAF is not a bookkeeping detail: an incomplete payroll file is how a director who lives abroad later receives a personal claim. Our article on social charges of a président or gérant who lives abroad sits next to this one. The successor also needs a clear mandate on the Guichet unique, so that the former mandataire is not still the only person who can click “signer”.

B. What to file next: accounts, tax, RBE and the handover

Blocked books are not a private inconvenience. They stop the legal calendar. Article L. 232-1 of the code de commerce, still in force until 1 January 2027, provides: “A la clôture de chaque exercice le conseil d’administration, le directoire ou les gérants dressent l’inventaire, les comptes annuels conformément aux dispositions de la section 2 du chapitre III du titre II du livre Ier et établissent un rapport de gestion écrit.” For a SARL, article L. 223-26 is more precise: “Le rapport de gestion, l’inventaire et les comptes annuels établis par les gérants, sont soumis à l’approbation des associés réunis en assemblée, dans le délai de six mois à compter de la clôture de l’exercice sous réserve de prolongation de ce délai par décision de justice.” If the meeting is not held, “le ministère public ou toute personne intéressée peut saisir le président du tribunal compétent statuant en référé afin d’enjoindre, le cas échéant sous astreinte, aux gérants de convoquer cette assemblée ou de désigner un mandataire pour y procéder.” A foreign gérant who cannot approve accounts because the accountant holds the file is the person the president of the court will enjoin, not the accountant. Ask the court that hears the document dispute, or a separate référé, for an extension of the six-month period if the closing is physically impossible. Do not let the deadline pass in silence. The mechanics of voting from abroad are set out in our article on approving annual accounts and bringing dividends home.

Tax follows the same records. Corporate-tax returns, VAT CA3 filings and the electronic journal the auditor or the tax office may request all assume that the company, not the former adviser, can produce the FEC. A tax-audit notice that arrives while the books are locked is a second emergency: the reply period does not stop because “our accountant is not speaking to us”. See our article on a tax audit of a French company while the owner lives abroad. The corporate-tax calendar, instalments and late-filing fines are mapped in our guide to the corporate-tax calendar, accounts and fines. Those pages are useless if nobody can export the journal. The successor’s first job is often a reconstruction from bank statements, not a cosmetic “takeover”. Budget for that reconstruction in the new lettre de mission, in writing, as article 24 requires.

The RBE (registre des bénéficiaires effectifs, beneficial-owner register) is the third calendar item that a blocked INPI account freezes. A change of shareholder, a change of président, or even a change of personal address of the foreign beneficial owner has to be declared through the same Guichet unique. An injunction from the president of the commercial court, with an astreinte (daily penalty), and ultimately a strike-off, are the tools the greffe uses when the register stays wrong. Recovering the INPI channel is therefore not an IT task. It is how the company remains on the RCS. Once the legal representative has access, file the pending modifications, then file the accounts when they exist. If the bank has already frozen the account on KYC grounds because the RBE is stale, the right-to-account path and the document path have to run together; our article on a refused or frozen French business account covers the banking side.

A clean handover, from abroad, looks like this. First, a dated notice that follows the lettre de mission. Second, payment or consignment of undisputed fees, with a written protest of the rest. Third, a référé only if the inventory is still refused and a statutory deadline is running, with a request for delivery under astreinte of named files (FEC, originals, last returns) rather than a vague “the whole dossier”. Fourth, a parallel recovery of the INPI account by the président or gérant, and a new mandataire code for the successor. Fifth, an extension of the accounts meeting if needed, then approval and filing. Sixth, an update of the RBE and of any pending Guichet unique dossier. Seventh, a written archive: the company, not the new accountant’s laptop, should hold a copy of the ten-year file that article L. 123-22 requires. If the siège is in Paris or elsewhere in Île-de-France, give the lawyer authority to collect greffe mail and to appear in référé without waiting for a visa appointment. The court will not adjourn because the owner is in another time zone.

Conclusion

A French company does not store its memory in the accountant’s cupboard. It must record its movements under article L. 123-12 and keep the documents for ten years under article L. 123-22. The expert-comptable is a regulated professional paid under article 24 of the 1945 ordonnance, not a commercial partner protected by the sudden-break rules, as the Cour de cassation held in n° 19-10.306. Unpaid fees can support a retention over work product under article 2286 of the code civil; they do not erase the company’s need for originals, for the FEC, or for the Guichet unique. The engagement letter’s notice clause is applied as written. The six-month accounts meeting under article L. 223-26 still runs against the gérant. The practical sequence for a foreign owner is therefore narrow: inventory, pay or consign what is not disputed, terminate in the form the letter requires, recover INPI access as legal representative, and, if the file is still blocked against a real deadline, ask the president of the court to order an obligation de faire under article 873 or article 834. That is how the company remains fileable, bankable and sellable from abroad.

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