Counterparty — France: sources and limits

A shareholders agreement in France binds parties to governance rules, transfer restrictions, and enforcement mechanisms. Before signing, the question of control — who actually directs the company, who holds the shares, and what constraints already exist — can be answered in part from official French registers. The ceiling of what those sources allow is stated here before any payment decision.

Control in a French company is not always visible at the first layer. A gérant of an SARL may act under a shareholders agreement that limits powers not filed anywhere. A président of an SAS may be removable by a simple majority of associates whose identity does not appear in the RNE. The sources below establish the registered layer; the gap between that layer and actual control is named explicitly in each section.

The Registre National des Entreprises (RNE), maintained by INPI, is the central source for French legal entities. It records legal form, registered address, date of incorporation, SIREN identifier, and the identity of statutory managers (gérant, président, directeur général, members of the conseil d'administration).

For an SARL, the register names the gérant and lists the capital amount. For an SAS, it names the président and, where applicable, the directeur général. Statutory powers of the gérant are defined by law and by the statuts; the statuts are a filed document and can be retrieved.

The register does not record shareholders of an SARL or SAS by default. Shareholder identity is held in the company's own registre des mouvements de titres, which is a private document. It is not filed with the RNE and is not accessible from outside the company without a court order or voluntary disclosure.

Directors' personal home addresses have been restricted from public view since Decree 2025-840. The registered address of the company remains visible; the private address of the individual does not.

Source: INPI/RNE · extracted 2026-03-20

The Bulletin Officiel des Annonces Civiles et Commerciales (BODACC) publishes mandatory notices from the commercial courts. It is free, carries an Open Data API, and holds publications from 2008 onward. Search runs by SIREN.

BODACC covers: registration and modification notices from the RCS, insolvency proceedings (sauvegarde, redressement judiciaire, liquidation judiciaire), court-ordered dissolution, and the deposit of annual accounts. Each notice carries a date and a reference to the originating court.

For a counterparty check before signing, BODACC answers three questions: Has the company been subject to insolvency proceedings? Has it been dissolved by court order? Have annual accounts been deposited, and if so, when?

A negative result on insolvency means no published proceeding. It does not mean no proceeding has been filed. A petition filed with the tribunal de commerce is not published in BODACC until the court issues its judgment opening the procedure. The gap between filing and publication can run to several weeks.

Source: bodacc.fr · extracted 2026-03-20

Annual accounts (comptes annuels) of French companies are deposited with the greffe du tribunal de commerce and published via INPI. Access is free.

A company may invoke confidentiality under Article L. 232-25 of the Code de commerce. Small companies (micro-entreprises and petites entreprises meeting the statutory thresholds) may request that their income statement not be disclosed. In that case, the balance sheet is published but the profit and loss account is withheld. Very small companies (micro-entreprises) may request full confidentiality of their accounts for up to two years.

The result: for a small French counterparty, filed financials may show only the balance sheet, or nothing at all for recent years. The absence of a filed income statement is not a registry error — it is a statutory right exercised by the company.

Where accounts are available, they show: total assets, equity, turnover (if not withheld), net result, and the statutory auditor's report where one is required. They do not show intra-group transfer pricing, off-balance-sheet commitments, or the terms of any shareholders agreement.

Source: INPI · extracted 2026-03-20

BODACC is the primary source for insolvency history in France. It records the opening, modification, and closure of sauvegarde, redressement judiciaire, and liquidation judiciaire proceedings, as well as rétablissement professionnel for individual entrepreneurs.

The search runs by SIREN. Results are returned as PDF notices with court references and dates. Alerts can be set for future publications on a given SIREN.

Enforcement actions against the company's assets (saisies, hypothèques judiciaires) are recorded at the level of the relevant tribunal judiciaire and the conservation des hypothèques, not in BODACC. These are not accessible remotely without a formal request to the relevant court registry or a notarial search.

Personal insolvency of a director (faillite personnelle, interdiction de gérer) is published in BODACC where ordered by a court. The Fichier national des interdits de gérer (FNIG) is maintained by the Conseil national des greffiers des tribunaux de commerce and is not publicly searchable online.

Source: bodacc.fr · extracted 2026-03-20

The four French public registers — RNE, BODACC, filed accounts via INPI, and the greffe — establish the registered layer of a company. That layer answers: who is the statutory manager, what is the legal form, has the company been in insolvency proceedings, and what do the filed accounts show.

The registered layer does not answer:

• Who holds the shares. Shareholder identity in an SARL or SAS is a private record. It is not filed and not accessible without court process or voluntary disclosure.
• What a shareholders agreement contains. Pactes d'actionnaires are private contracts. They are not filed anywhere. Their existence may be inferred from statuts clauses, but their terms are not visible.
• Whether a manager's powers are restricted by an undisclosed agreement. A gérant's statutory powers are broad; contractual restrictions between shareholders do not appear in the register.
• Whether a petition for insolvency has been filed but not yet published. The gap between filing and BODACC publication is real and can be material.
• Whether enforcement actions exist against company assets. Saisies and judicial mortgages are held at court and notarial level, not in BODACC.
• Whether the income statement has been withheld. The absence of a filed P&L is a statutory right, not a data gap.

The report establishes what the sources show and names the level at which the chain stops. It does not assert facts beyond what the sources contain.