Declaring a claim allows a creditor to obtain payment. Indeed, the undeclared claims shall not be taken into account in the collective proceedings. As a result, they will not be paid.

The following claims shall be reported:

• Previous receivables the judgment initiating the safeguard, judicial reorganization or judicial liquidation proceedings
• Subsequent receivables the opening judgment and who do not have the payment privilege (i.e. payment in priority over other claims). In principle, claims posterior to the opening judgment benefit a payment privilege, i.e. they do not need to be declared. They are those who intervene for the purposes of the procedure or the observation period or in return for a service provided to the company in difficulty.

The declaration of claim must be made by the creditor .

It is therefore the individual entrepreneur himself or herself or the legal representative in the case of a business (SARL manager, managing director of a SA with a board of directors, etc.).

The creditor may entrust this procedure to a agent (lawyer or commissioner of justice) or attendant having received a power (for example, an employee with a delegation of authority).

The creditor has a period of 2 months from the publication of the opening judgment of the collective procedure to the official bulletin of civil and commercial announcements (bodacc.fr) to make a declaration of claim.

The starting point for this period is different for creditors holding a safety (pledge, mortgage) or bound by a published contract (e.g. leasing). Indeed, they are personally notified of the opening of a collective procedure by a registered letter from the judicial representative. The two-month period therefore runs from this notification (and not from the publication in Bodacc).

There are exceptions within this period of 2 months:

• Where the creditor is not located in mainland France, the period is extended to 4 months.
• Where collective proceedings are opened in an overseas department or collectivity and the creditor is not located there, the period shall be extended to four months.

What is the form of the declaration of claims?

The declaration of claims shall be formalized in writing. It shall contain all of the following:

• Amount of claim due on the day of the judgment opening the collective proceedings with an indication of the sums to be paid with the date of their due dates. Where the claim is not yet established by a security or its amount is not yet definitively fixed, the declaration shall be made on the basis of a evaluation.
  For a claim in a foreign currency, the conversion into euros is made at the exchange rate at the date of the judgment initiating the collective proceedings
• Methods of calculating interest whose course is not stopped
• Indication of the court seised if the claim declared is the subject of a dispute
• Date of the privilege (of the taxes or of the Urssaf) or of safety (pledge, mortgage) with which the claim may be attached

There is no dematerialized portal to make a claim declaration online.

On the other hand, standard form the declaration of claims shall be made available to:

Declaration of claims

This statement should be accompanied by all the documents proving the existence of the claim (copy of invoice, purchase order or delivery order, etc.) with a slip.

How to file the declaration of claims?

It is preferable to transmit the declaration of claims by registered letter, with a request for acknowledgement of receipt, in order to avoid disputes as to whether the deadlines have been complied with. A claim submitted after the deadline cannot be settled.

It must be transmitted:

• in case of judicial or safeguard reorganization at: judicial representative.
• in case of bankruptcy : to the judicial liquidator.

The creditor who has not declared its claim within the time limit (2 months) can not get the settlement: it is considered as forclos.

However, the creditor has the possibility to declare his claim after the deadline when the failure to declare within the deadline is not his fault. This is the case, for example, when he has been hospitalized or when the company in difficulty has forgotten to mention him in the list of creditors.

In this case, he must file a foreclosure statement request at the registry of the commercial court or the economic activities court.

It must be addressed to commissioner judge in the 6 months which follow the publication of the opening judgment in the official bulletin of civil and commercial advertisements (bodacc.fr).

If the creditor obtains a favorable response from the judge-commissioner, he can then declare its claim within 1 month following notification of the decision to foreclosure statement.

The judicial representative or the liquidator must acknowledge receipt of the declaration of claim within 15 days. It checks each of the claims declared, in particular their existence and their amount. It then establishes the list of claims declared with its proposals for the admission or rejection of claims.

The commissioner judge then decides to admission or rejection of those claims.

This statement of receivables shall be deposited at the registry of the court where any person may become acquainted with it. An insertion is published in bodacc.fr by the clerk. It states that the statement of claims is established and filed with the Registry.

The decisions of the judge-commissioner can be challenged before the court of appeal by any interested party: the creditor, the company in difficulty, the judicial representative or the liquidator, third parties (sureties, other creditors, etc.). This complaint must be filed within one month of publication in the bodacc.fr.