The initiation of collective proceedings is ordered by a court ruling—either by the Commercial Court or the Judicial Court (Tribunal de grande instance), depending on the status of the debtor. The information is collected by the Banque de France either automatically from the Commercial Courts or via the Official Bulletin of Civil and Commercial Announcements (Bodacc).

The figures published by the Banque de France and republished by Insee cover judicial reorganisations and judicial liquidations, based on the date of the ruling, provided these collective proceedings are preceded by a declaration of cessation of payments. This is not the case for safeguard proceedings, which are therefore excluded.

Given that a legal unit may undergo several collective proceedings over time, if a judicial liquidation is pronounced following an observation period after the opening of a judicial reorganisation, only one business bankruptcy is recorded. However, if a continuation plan or a disposal plan (plan de cession) is implemented between a judicial reorganisation and a judicial liquidation or a new reorganisation, this plan is considered to close the initial procedure. In that case, the subsequent liquidation or reorganisation is counted as a new proceeding—that is, as a new business bankruptcy for the legal unit.

Business bankruptcy series are seasonally adjusted using the Census X-12 method. The “total” and “SMEs” series are adjusted independently: seasonally adjusted aggregates are therefore not the sum of their seasonally adjusted components.

Source: Methodology of the Stat Info “Business bankrupties in France” from the Banque de France.