A French court ruling from 5 June 2026 addressed the personal liability of a company manager for failing to declare insolvency, under the principle of separable fault. This legal concept refers to a specific type of wrongdoing that can be separated from a person's usual duties and held individually accountable. The case involved a company that had incurred liabilities exceeding 119,000 euros for renovation work and was later ordered to pay over 64,000 euros in restitutions, damages, and court costs. The company eventually ceased operations and was officially removed from the trade and companies register without undergoing a formal collective insolvency procedure. A creditor then took legal action against the company's manager before the Economic Activities Tribunal of Versailles. The tribunal ruled that the manager had precise knowledge of the company's financial state, including significant liabilities, an inability to pay suppliers, a lack of liquidity, and an inability to execute judgments. The court determined that the manager's deliberate omission to declare the company’s inability to pay, combined with allowing the company to be abandoned until its official removal, constituted a fault of particular gravity. This fault was deemed separate from the manager's regular duties and deprived the creditor of the opportunity to declare its claim, participate in a collective procedure, and obtain an organized settlement on the company’s assets. The court assessed the damage at 30,000 euros, which corresponds to the loss of the chance to be discharged, in whole or in part, within a properly opened collective procedure. The ruling clarified that the damage repaired does not correspond to the full debt owed but to the lost opportunity. The court also noted that the mere delay in a declaration would likely not be sufficient to establish liability. The court acknowledged that the manager's defense might focus on the absence of assets, arguing that the opening of a procedure would have changed nothing for the creditor. However, the court countered that the opening of a procedure would have allowed the intervention of a trustee, inventory of assets, examination of the acts of the suspicious period, and, if applicable, an action for insufficient assets against the manager himself. The entire set of these avenues was closed due to the manager's silence. Practical recommendations for creditors and their advisors include establishing proof of the manager's knowledge of the company's difficulties, reconstructing the chronology of events, acting before the company's removal, monitoring the statute of limitations, checking the manager's solvency, and carefully quantifying the damage as a lost chance rather than the full claim amount. The ruling illustrates a concrete application of the separable fault principle in a frequent situation involving the silent disappearance of an insolvent company. It highlights that the obligation under Article L631-4 of the Commercial Code protects creditors, even though the decision must be confirmed by other jurisdictions before it can be considered an established trend.