The failure of the plan to safeguard the company in difficulty

Article L 626-27 of the French Commercial Code punishes the failure of a bankruptcy plan by cancellation. The destructive impact of this sanction may, at first, trigger a company's interest when the court's decision does not correspond to the company's bankruptcy goal. Nonetheless this choice is surprising given that it punishes the non-execution of a contractual obligation. However it seems difficult to consider the plan as a contract. The Act of July 26, 2005 looks to formalizing this process by contract namely through the participation of creditor committees in the early stages of the procedure, but it remains a jurisdictional action. This incompatibility encourages one to redefine the nature of this sanction.

A careful examination of the plan's failure shows that the sanction fulfills a logic pertaining to a collective procedure, the causes and consequences of which are diverse. Contrary to the cancellation, the sanction punishing the plan's failure may be delivered in case of the non-execution of commitments put forth in the plan or the suspension of payments during its execution. Furthermore its consequences are distinct, with no retro activity. In case of non-execution, the sanction allows for a return to the initial contractual relation, but in case of suspension of payments it guarantees a bankruptcy closure and a return to collective procedure. Thus, it would no longer be a cancellation but a hybrid procedural instrument pertaining to a collective procedure.

Therefore a coherent approach to the failure of the bankruptcy plan encourages one to rephrase article L 626-27 of the French Commercial Code.