Question 26705 — businesses

Summary

Ms. Laurence Maillart-Méhaignerie draws the attention of the Minister of the Economy and Finance to the difficulties encountered by certain economic actors, particularly very small businesses, in obtaining payment of their invoices within the legal deadlines set by law. Regarding payment delays, the economic modernization law of August 4, 2008 established a reduction in payment deadlines. Article L. 441-6 of the code of commerce now sets the default payment period to 30 days, which can extend up to 60 days after the invoice is issued. Today, in the event of late payment, the legislation also provides for the payment of a fixed compensation of 40 euros. But in too many cases of missed deadlines, this fixed compensation is not attached to the payment and is never paid. Companies prefer not to demand it, for fear of straining their commercial relations. Failure to meet these payment deadlines can have dramatic consequences for small and medium-sized businesses, by putting a strain on their cash flow, which could lead to them filing for bankruptcy. Indeed, people's difficulties in recovering their debts often put companies in a delicate economic situation which can constitute a brake on investment and consequently to the growth of these companies. These conditions can, moreover, have the consequence of generating employee remuneration problems for companies. The January-February 2019 bulletin from the Banque de France on payment deadlines shows that those of companies are stable, at 44 days of turnover in 2017 on the customer side and 51 days of purchases for supplier deadlines. The Bank of France notes that almost one in three companies support payments over 60 days. “The growth in sales recorded between 2016 and 2017, combined with the maintenance of the share of customer receivables paid late, leads to an increase in outstanding customer receivables and an increased cash flow cost,” explains the institution which estimates that this liquidity deficit represents 19 billion euros for SMEs. The study published in April 2019 by the Payment Deadlines Observatory, also warned on this subject: groups of more than 5,000 employees allow themselves greater payment delays than small businesses, despite more comfortable cash flow. She therefore wishes to know the measures and tools that the Government plans to take, in particular the role that dematerialization could have in this problem in order to support businesses, so that they can receive their payments in a sustainable manner in return for their commercial activity.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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