By Yasmine EDDAM
8 April 2025
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, it proves impossible to turn around a company in difficulty. When the company's financial situation has deteriorated too much and there is no serious prospect of it continuing, French law provides for a final outcome: liquidation by order of the court. This term, often dreaded, marks the end of the company's activity and the start of a process aimed at selling its assets to pay off its creditors as far as possible. How is this procedure triggered? Who steers it? How are assets sold and how are creditors paid? And what are the final consequences for the company and its director? The aim of this article is to give you a clearer idea of how a compulsory liquidation procedure works. We will look at the conditions under which it is opened, the essential role of the liquidator, the different ways of selling the company's assets, the complex order in which creditors are paid and, finally, the closure of the liquidation.
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