Your French customer owes your company 45,000 euros, the reminders went unanswered for weeks, and then a short email arrives: the debtor has entered a French insolvency proceeding, your payment order is frozen, and somebody called a mandataire judiciaire, the court-appointed insolvency representative, now controls the file. You live in London, Dubai or New York, the proceedings run in French before a commercial court you have never visited, and a deadline measured in weeks has already started running without anyone notifying you personally. This is the most dangerous moment in French commercial life for a foreign creditor, because the entire system pivots on a single formality: the declaration of your claim, called the declaration de creance, filed with the insolvency representative within a short statutory deadline, failing which your claim is shut out of every distribution. This guide explains how to learn about the proceedings from abroad, how to file a valid declaration without travelling, how the verification of claims works, how you actually get paid under a continuation plan or in a liquidation, and how to rescue a missed deadline through the relevé de forclusion, the court relief that lifts the time bar. If the debtor is still solvent and simply refusing to pay, our guide to recovering an unpaid French invoice through penalties and the payment-order procedure covers that earlier stage; this article takes over the day insolvency opens. And if you are new to operating in France, our companion guide to setting up a company in France as a foreign founder, from bank account to Kbis to VAT and first hire explains the Kbis extract, the official identity card of a French company issued by the greffe, the registry office of the commercial court, which is also the document that tells you whether your debtor still legally exists.

I. The French insolvency clock starts without waiting for you

A. How to learn that your French debtor is in proceedings when you live abroad

French insolvency law offers three court proceedings, and the clock you face depends on which one opened. The sauvegarde, or safeguard proceeding, protects a company that is not yet unable to pay but faces difficulties it cannot overcome alone. The redressement judiciaire, or judicial reorganisation, covers a company that has stopped paying its debts but whose business can still be saved. The liquidation judiciaire, or court-ordered liquidation, ends the story by selling the assets and paying creditors in rank order. In each case the opening judgment is published in the BODACC, the official bulletin of civil and commercial announcements, and that publication is the starting gun for creditors: individual enforcement is frozen, the debtor loses control of payments, and every creditor must declare. No bailiff crosses the Channel to hand you the judgment. The burden is on you to watch the debtor, which from abroad means organising a monitoring routine before trouble starts: bookmark the debtor’s record on the official company-information portals, subscribe to BODACC alerts on the company’s Siren number, the nine-digit identifier issued by INSEE, the national statistics office, and instruct your French accountant or counsel to flag any registered letter, any rumour of non-payment, and any change of the company’s officers or registered office, called the siege social, which often precedes a filing.

The debtor himself feeds the proceedings with a list that may or may not name you, and that list decides whether you receive a personal warning. The Commercial Code requires that “Le débiteur remet à l’administrateur et au mandataire judiciaire, pour les besoins de l’exercice de leur mandat, la liste de ses créanciers, du montant de ses dettes et des principaux contrats en cours”, a duty available on Légifrance under Article L.622-6 of the Commercial Code. Creditors holding a published security or bound to the debtor by a published contract receive a personal notice, and time runs against them only from that notice, but an ordinary foreign supplier of goods or services typically appears on the list as one line among hundreds, or is omitted entirely, and receives nothing. Never treat silence as good news. The week you suspect payment has stopped, check the BODACC entry yourself, call the registry of the competent commercial court, and write to the debtor’s last known address asking for the name of any appointed representative. Founders who discover the proceedings in month three, when the declaration window is nearly closed, invariably say the same thing: nobody told them. The system answers that publication was the notice, and courts enforce that answer strictly.

Distance creates three information traps you should defuse in advance. First, French-language publication only: the BODACC publishes in French, the opening judgment is in French, and the representative’s letters are in French, so designate now a French-speaking contact, accountant or lawyer, authorised to receive and translate everything the same day. Second, the frozen enforcement trap: from the opening judgment, you may no longer seize the debtor’s accounts or pursue the payment order you had started, and any step taken in ignorance of the opening can be annulled, so suspend all enforcement the day you learn of the proceedings and redirect the energy into the declaration. Third, the group-confusion trap: where your debtor is a French subsidiary of a foreign group, or your contract was signed with a different entity of the same group, verify precisely which legal entity entered proceedings by matching the Siren number on the judgment with your invoices and contract, because declaring against the wrong entity wastes the deadline while the right one distributes without you. Each of these traps has the same antidote: a short email to French counsel the day doubt arises, attaching the contract, the unpaid invoices and whatever notice you received. That email costs little and buys the one resource the procedure never refunds, which is time.

B. How to declare your claim from abroad before the deadline runs out

The declaration duty is universal and immediate. The Commercial Code states that “A partir de la publication du jugement, tous les créanciers dont la créance est née antérieurement au jugement d’ouverture, à l’exception des salariés, adressent la déclaration de leurs créances au mandataire judiciaire dans des délais fixés par décret en Conseil d’Etat”, a rule available on Légifrance under Article L.622-24 of the Commercial Code. Every claim born before the opening judgment must be declared: invoices delivered and unpaid, loans, damages, rent arrears, and even claims whose exact amount is not yet fixed, which are declared on the basis of an estimate, since the same article adds that claims are declared even without a formal title. Only employees are exempt, because their wage claims are settled through a dedicated guarantee scheme. The declaration goes to the mandataire judiciaire in safeguard and reorganisation, and to the liquidator, called the liquidateur, in liquidation, whose contact details appear in the BODACC notice and the judgment. From abroad, send the declaration by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt and double it by email, keeping both proofs, because the date of dispatch evidences timeliness if the representative later claims late receipt.

The deadline is short, but the law gives the creditor living outside metropolitan France exactly the breathing room this article’s readers need. The regulatory provision sets that “Le délai de déclaration fixé en application de l’article L. 622-26 est de deux mois à compter de la publication du jugement d’ouverture au Bulletin officiel des annonces civiles et commerciales”, and it continues that “le délai de déclaration est augmenté de deux mois pour les créanciers qui ne demeurent pas sur ce territoire”, both sentences available on Légifrance under Article R.622-24 of the Commercial Code. A creditor based in London, Dubai, New York or Singapore therefore has four months from the BODACC publication, not two, provided the proceedings opened before a metropolitan French court. Do not spend those extra two months passively: use week one to confirm the representative’s address and the exact publication date, weeks two to six to assemble the file, and file no later than month three, keeping the fourth as a safety margin for postal delays and requests for additional documents. Where the debtor held a published security in your favour or your contract was published, the clock runs from the personal notice instead, so diary both dates and file on the earlier one.

The content of the declaration decides whether it survives verification, so build it like an evidence bundle rather than a cover letter. The statute requires the amount owed at the date of the opening judgment with future sums and their due dates, the nature and base of any security, and, for foreign-currency claims, conversion into euros at the exchange rate on the opening-judgment date, since Article L.622-25 of the Commercial Code provides that “Lorsqu’il s’agit de créances en monnaie étrangère, la conversion en euros a lieu selon le cours du change à la date du jugement d’ouverture”. Unless your claim rests on an enforceable title, you must certify it as sincere, the same article adding that “Sauf si elle résulte d’un titre exécutoire, la créance déclarée est certifiée sincère par le créancier”. In practice, attach the signed contract, every unpaid invoice with proof of delivery or performance, the statement of account, the demand letters already sent, the calculation of interest and penalties with the contractual or statutory basis, the security documents if any, and the exchange-rate source for non-euro claims. The statute allows the declaration to be made by the creditor or by any agent or representative of his choice: Article L.622-24 of the Commercial Code states that “La déclaration des créances peut être faite par le créancier ou par tout préposé ou mandataire de son choix”, so a French lawyer holding your power of attorney can sign and file everything while you remain abroad. Attach that power of attorney to the declaration where someone else signs, because representatives routinely reject filings signed by an unidentified foreign employee with no delegation attached.

II. After the declaration: verification, recovery and the missed-deadline rescue

A. How your claim is verified, admitted or rejected, and how to challenge

Filing the declaration moves your claim into the verification phase, where the insolvency representative examines every file and the supervising judge decides. The representative first draws up the list of declared claims with proposals to admit, reject or refer each one to the competent court, after seeking the debtor’s observations, since Article L.624-1 of the Commercial Code provides that “Dans le délai fixé par le tribunal, le mandataire judiciaire établit, après avoir sollicité les observations du débiteur, la liste des créances déclarées avec ses propositions d’admission, de rejet ou de renvoi devant la juridiction compétente”. Expect the debtor to contest anything contestable: delivered goods allegedly defective, services allegedly incomplete, penalties allegedly abusive, interest allegedly miscalculated. Your declaration file should therefore anticipate the standard objections with delivery slips signed by the debtor’s staff, acceptance emails, time sheets, and the contract clauses that price the penalties. In a court-ordered liquidation the same work proceeds alongside the sale of the assets, the statute noting that “Le liquidateur procède aux opérations de liquidation en même temps qu’à la vérification des créances”, available on Légifrance under Article L.641-4 of the Commercial Code, which means verification does not wait for the auction results and you should not wait either to complete your file.

The decision itself belongs to the juge-commissaire, the judge appointed to supervise the proceedings, who rules on the representative’s proposals. The governing text states that “Au vu des propositions du mandataire judiciaire, le juge-commissaire, si la demande d’admission est recevable, décide de l’admission ou du rejet des créances ou constate soit qu’une instance est en cours, soit que la contestation ne relève pas de sa compétence”, available on Légifrance under Article L.624-2 of the Commercial Code. Admission fixes your claim in the proceedings for its admitted amount and rank; rejection shuts you out unless you appeal; a finding that litigation is already pending or that the dispute belongs to another court sends that slice of the fight to the competent jurisdiction while the proceedings continue. The resulting statement of claims is lodged at the court registry where anyone may consult it, with a BODACC notice announcing the lodging, so instruct counsel to inspect it and confirm your line appears for the right amount. Where the representative questions your file, respond within the stated deadline with the missing document rather than with indignation: the statute on appeals shuts the door on a creditor who ignored the representative and then challenges a confirming decision, since Article L.624-3 of the Commercial Code bars recourse by a creditor who failed to answer the representative where the judge confirms the proposal. Silence during verification is therefore the one mistake that even a later appeal cannot repair.

An unfavourable decision is not the end of the road, and the appeal route is expressly open to you. Article L.624-3 of the Commercial Code states that “Le recours contre les décisions du juge commissaire prises en application de la présente section est ouvert au créancier, au débiteur ou au mandataire judiciaire”, so a foreign creditor can challenge a rejection before the court of appeal under the conditions and forms set by decree, with counsel acting throughout and your presence almost never required. Use the appeal window to cure evidentiary gaps rather than merely rearguing: produce the missing delivery proof, commission a translation by a sworn translator where the judge doubted a foreign-language document, or obtain the debtor’s former employee statement that corroborates performance. Parallel lawsuits on the merits continue before their own courts where the supervising judge noted pending proceedings, so coordinate both tracks through one counsel to avoid contradictory positions. Appeals have short, strict deadlines counted from notification or publication, and a non-resident learns of decisions late, which is why your instruction letter to counsel should include standing authority to appeal any rejection immediately and inform you afterwards, rather than waiting for your instructions while the clock expires. A rejection answered within days by a supplemented file very often becomes an admission on appeal; a rejection discovered months later becomes a lesson in calendar management.

B. How to get paid in the plan or the liquidation, and what to do if you missed the deadline

Admission is a ticket, not a payment, and what the ticket pays depends on the outcome of the proceedings. In safeguard and reorganisation, the court may adopt a continuation plan that reschedules debts over several years, sometimes with partial write-offs, and admitted creditors are paid according to the plan’s classes and timetable once the court approves it and the debtor honours its commitments. In liquidation, the liquidator sells the assets and distributes the price in strict rank order: court costs and privileged claims first, then secured creditors against their collateral, then unsecured creditors, called chirographaires, sharing what remains proportionally, which in thin files means a few percent or nothing. The statute is candid about empty liquidations, warning that there is no verification of unsecured claims where the sale proceeds will be entirely absorbed by court costs and privileged claims, unless the directors may be pursued for the shortfall. Concretely, a foreign supplier with an ordinary invoice should calibrate expectations from the first weeks: ask counsel for the representative’s early assessment of the asset pool, check whether any bank holds a blanket security over the debtor’s assets, and weigh any plan proposal against the likely liquidation dividend before voting. A plan paying thirty percent over five years beats a liquidation paying nothing; a plan demanding ten years of patience for five percent may not.

Securities and set-offs change the mathematics completely, so inventory yours before concluding the claim is worthless. A retention-of-title clause, called clause de reserve de propriete, lets you reclaim delivered goods still held by the debtor instead of sharing pennies with unsecured creditors, provided you act within the short reclaim deadlines and identify the goods precisely. A bank guarantee payable on first demand, a parent-company surety, or a credit-insurance policy pays outside the proceedings altogether, which is why the declaration file should list every guarantee even where the primary claim sits inside the proceedings. Reciprocal debts between you and the debtor may be set off where the legal conditions of connected claims are met, a technical argument counsel should test early. And where the debtor’s directors stripped the company or continued a doomed business, the representative or the court can pursue them personally for the asset shortfall, with any recovery swelling the pool for all creditors including you. None of these routes requires your presence in France, but each has its own deadline measured in weeks or months, so the same standing instruction applies: counsel checks every parallel avenue the day the declaration is filed, not the day the dividend proves disappointing.

The missed deadline has its own rescue procedure, and foreign creditors use it more than any other group. The sanction for late filing is severe: the statute states that “A défaut de déclaration dans les délais prévus à l’article L. 622-24 , les créanciers ne sont pas admis dans les répartitions et les dividendes à moins que le juge-commissaire ne les relève de leur forclusion s’ils établissent que leur défaillance n’est pas due à leur fait ou qu’elle est due à une omission du débiteur lors de l’établissement de la liste prévue au deuxième alinéa de l’article L. 622-6 “, available on Légifrance under Article L.622-26 of the Commercial Code. Two doors open: your failure was not your fault, which covers the foreign creditor who proves he could not reasonably have known of proceedings published only in French in a country where he has no establishment, or the debtor omitted you from his creditor list, which the representative’s own file then confirms. The relief action itself expires six months after the opening judgment’s publication, the same article adding that “L’action en relevé de forclusion ne peut être exercée que dans le délai de six mois”, so a creditor who discovers everything in month seven has no relief left. File the relief petition with the supervising judge through counsel the day the miss is discovered, evidencing the foreign domicile, the absence of personal notice, the monitoring efforts made, and the debtor’s omission from the list, then declare within the halved deadline running from the relief decision. Late creditors admitted this way join only distributions occurring after their request, so every week of delay permanently shrinks the recoverable pool even when relief is granted.

Conclusion

A French debtor’s insolvency does not erase your claim, but it transfers it into a procedure where deadlines replace negotiation and publication replaces personal notice. Watch your debtors through BODACC alerts on their Siren numbers, react the day payment stops by identifying the court and the appointed representative, and file a complete declaration within the four months the law grants creditors outside metropolitan France, attaching the contract, the invoices, the delivery proofs, the interest computation, the euro conversion at the opening-judgment rate, and the power of attorney where counsel signs for you. Follow verification actively, answer the representative’s questions within the stated time, inspect the lodged statement of claims, and appeal any rejection through counsel without waiting. Price realistically what admission will pay under a plan or in a liquidation, activate every security, guarantee and reclaim route in parallel, and if the deadline slipped, petition for relief within the six months with proof that the miss was not your fault or that the debtor omitted you. Handled in that order, from London, Dubai, New York or Singapore, a French insolvency becomes a managed recovery file rather than a foreign-language ambush.