Cass. com., 10 September 2025, no. 24-18.415: The list of claims submitted by the debtor to the judicial agent does not amount to an acknowledgement of debt!

“Cass. com., 10 September 2025, no. 24-18.415: The list of claims submitted by the debtor to the judicial agent does not amount to an acknowledgement of debt!

In a judgment handed down on 10 September 2025 (no. 24-18.415), the Commercial Chamber of the French Supreme Court (Cass. com.) had the opportunity to rule on the admission of a claim to the liabilities of an insolvency proceeding, holding that a claim entered by the debtor on the list of claims forwarded to the judicial agent (mandataire judiciaire) did not amount to an acknowledgement of debt.

In this case, a debtor had recorded a claim in the amount of €75k on the list of claims submitted to the judicial agent. The creditor subsequently filed its claim for an amount of €87k, which was challenged by the debtor.

The Court of Appeal nevertheless admitted the claim to the liabilities of the insolvency proceeding in the amount of €75k, holding that the declaration made by the debtor on the creditor’s behalf amounted to an extrajudicial admission within the limit of the amount that the debtor itself had declared.

The Supreme Court quashes the appellate judgment and recalls that: “the claim entered by the debtor, …, while it gives rise to a presumption that the claim has been filed by its holder, within the limit of the content of the information provided to the judicial agent, does not amount to an acknowledgement by the debtor of the merits of that claim, so that the debtor may subsequently challenge it under the conditions set out in Articles L. 624-1 and R. 624-1 of the aforementioned Code”.

Indeed, Articles L. 622-6 and R. 622-5 of the French Commercial Code require the debtor to forward to the judicial agent, “within the eight days following the opening judgment”, the list of its creditors and the amount of its debts.

Failure to submit this list may be sanctioned by a measure prohibiting the person from managing a business (Article L. 653-8, second paragraph), and this omission constitutes a ground for automatic relief from foreclosure for the creditor, as provided for by Article L. 622-26, first paragraph, of the Commercial Code.

Finally, while the debtor’s mention within the list thus amounts to a presumption of the filing of the claim, the Supreme Court had already had the opportunity to specify that this presumption does not constitute an acknowledgement of debt and that it cannot relieve the creditor of the burden of proving its claim (Cass. com., 23 May 2024, no. 23-12.133).