In order to help small businesses that are viable but threatened with bankruptcy due to the crisis, the government wants to put in place, temporarily, a simplified and accelerated three-month judicial procedure to restructure their debts, via an amendment to the bill relating to management of the way out of the health crisis examined in the Senate. “
We know that managers may be reluctant to deal with the difficulties of their business through the courts, due to apprehension linked to commercial courts and the fear of being subjected to a long procedure which may also entail the forced sale of the company,
”explains the executive. However, resorting to these procedures only belatedly "
reduces the chances of allowing the continuation of the activity
".
Read also:
VSEs and SMEs rather confident in the future
In detail, this “
crisis exit
” procedure, which will be in place for two years, can be used by SMEs with fewer than 20 employees, with less than 3 million euros in declared liabilities and therefore able to to present a recovery plan in three months.
Their debts can be spread over 10 years.
In addition, "
the companies targeted are those which operated in satisfactory conditions before the economic crisis
", insists the government.
Clearly, the idea is not to support companies that were already in poor health before the pandemic.
This measure is part of a broad support plan for businesses of all sizes, healthy but over-indebted because of the pandemic, which must be jointly presented by Bruno Le Maire (Economy) and Éric Dupond-Moretti (Justice) , probably next week. The idea is in particular to facilitate their early spotting and
to help them bounce back via various tools. “
And, in certain specific cases, it may be decided to cancel all or part of their debt,
” Bruno Le Maire recently indicated.
