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FranceLégifrance

€1m late-payment fine upheld; French periods EU-compatible

A €1m late-payment fine stands: French payment periods are EU-compatible, the invoice-issue date is the lawful yardstick, and supplier delays are no defence.

By Taxxa AI OyPublished 30 September 2026

Legal & Corporate

The Conseil d'État (9ème et 10ème chambres réunies, 30 September 2026, n° 505312) rejected Eiffage Route Centre Est's appealLegifrance against the 1-million-euro late-payment fine imposed for 2018 breaches by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes DREETS director, with twelve months' publication on the DGCCRF website left standing. The Lyon appeal court had dismissed the company's challenge in April 2025Legifrance; no CJEU reference was needed, there being no serious difficulty of EU-law interpretation.

On the applicable law, the decision settles three points. The French payment periods — thirty days from receipt of goods or performance by default, sixty days from invoice issue by agreement, or forty-five days end-of-month by express non-abusive stipulationLegifrance (article L. 441-6-I, wording applicable in 2018 until 26 April 2019, now L. 441-10) — are compatible with the Late Payment Directive 2011/7/EULegifrance: they rebalance business relations in favour of the creditorLegifrance, which article 12 of the directive expressly permitsLegifrance, and the directive pursues no payment-period unification objective the French rules could breach. The invoice-issue date as the starting point does not offend the EU general principle of legal certainty, because the seller must issue the invoice upon sale or performanceLegifrance and the buyer must claim it (L. 441-3, now L. 441-9, with the issue date on the invoice per article 242 nonies A of CGI Annex IILegifrance). And a contemplated Commission draft regulation that might impose invoice receipt as the starting point is without incidenceLegifrance.

On the sanction, the court endorses the reasoning while substituting one ground: periodic invoices are not a separate type de délai légal under the DGCCRF's 2 December 2021 fining guidelinesLegifrance, so no separate computation had to be disclosed for themLegifrance — a substitution that cures the appeal court's reasoning on that point. Otherwise the fine was sufficiently reasonedLegifrance (share of late invoices, scale of overruns, turnover, number of suppliers affected, company situation)Legifrance, with no duty to disclose the arithmetic formulaLegifrance. On quantum, the figures speak: 41.1% of standard-regime invoices late with a 31.82-day weighted average overrun on 35,128,847 euros billed, and 72.9% of transport-sector invoices late with a 29.71-day average on 15,472,533 euros. Late transmission of invoices by suppliers does not exonerate the debtor; the no-financial-gain argument was inopérantLegifrance; and the sanction was individualised and proportionate. The 6,000-euro article L. 761-1 claim fails with the appeal.

For B2B compliance, the operational points are that the invoice-issue date remains the lawful yardstick, supplier-side delays are no defence, and seven-figure fines calibrated on late-invoice shares and overrun days survive proportionality review.

Legal basis: Conseil d'État, 9ème et 10ème chambres réunies, 30/09/2026, n° 505312 (ECLI:FR:CECHR:2026:505312.20260930); code de commerce, articles L. 441-6-I (2018 wording), L. 441-10, L. 441-16, L. 441-3/L. 441-9; directive 2011/7/UE, articles 3 and 12; DGCCRF lignes directrices du 2 décembre 2021.

Sources

Conseil d'État, 9ème et 10ème chambres réunies, 30/09/2026, 505312