Legal ad: for whom and how to do it ?
A company is required to publish a notice in a legal gazette (JAL) at different times of its existence. Therefore, a business creator or reseller needs to familiarize himself with the process. The publication in a JAL is mandatory as soon as a company is created or taken over.
Nevertheless, entrepreneurs and project leaders can entrust this formality to specialized actors.
What is a legal notice ?
L’legal notice means the information of a company inserted in an official journal (JAL). It is used to fulfill the legal obligation to publicize information and important events of a company. Indeed, the manager is obliged to inform the public about the decisions taken and the significant changes within the structure.
He must, for example, publish a legal announcement in case of revision of the share capital.
The domiciliation is part of the criteria determining the newspapers authorized to publish the official announcements of a company. The location of the company’s registered office. Thus, the legal announcement newspaper must above all be based in the department of the main establishment.
Other criteria are also considered by the local authorities when drawing up the annual list of JALs.
This type of notice is mandatory since 1955, following the reform on land publicity. The obligation also appears in the Commercial Code (art. R210-3).
It ensures the opposability of the company towards third parties and the validity of its legal acts. In order to avoid any cancellation, it will be necessary to publish announcements for the various legal operations of the company.
How to write a legal announcement ?
Beyond the requirements of the administration, the legal announcement has a real informative function. It allows effectively to obtain useful information about a company thanks to the compulsory mentions, including among others :
- The legal form of the company ;
- The corporate name and the commercial name;
- The amount of the share capital;
- The corporate purpose of the company;
- The address of the main establishment (head office);
- The duration of the structure from the date of registration;
- The date of signature of the articles of association and other incorporation documents;
- The identity and contact information of the president or each manager;
- The mention RCS and the clerk’s office of the competent commercial court;
- The legal mentions concerning the approval clauses as well as the access to the meetings (for SAS, SASU and SA).
In case of errors or omissions, the published announcement will be rejected by the clerk of the commercial court. It will then be necessary to publish an addendum, a corrigendum, or even a new notice on the same subject. The director must therefore check the publications carefully.
In addition, the certificate of publication in the JAL is essential for many formalities.
Who must publish one ?
The official announcements are compulsory for commercial and civil companies that have to be registered with the RCS. This is one of the conditions for registration in the trade and companies register. Thus, these notices are required to companies of legal forms:
- EURL (one-man business with limited liability) ;
- SA (société anonyme) ;
- SARL (limited liability company) ;
- SAS (simplified joint stock company) ;
- SASU (simplified one-person company);
- SCI (société civile immobilière) ;
- SCM (société civile de moyens).
In other words, the obligation of publicity applies to legal persons carrying on a commercial activity. On the other hand, it does not concern natural persons and assimilated statutes such as the IE, the EIRL or the microenterprise.
When ?
The legal announcement is necessary for to make public the creation, modification or disappearance of a company. It must therefore be published in various decisive circumstances such as:
- The creation of the company;
- The transfer of the registered office;
- The replacement of a manager ;
- The entry in the capital of new partners ;
- The transfer of shares;
- The change of the company’s object;
- The modification of the statutes ;
- Collective procedures ;
- The increase or reduction of the company’s capital;
- The transfer of a business ;
- The company is being mothballed, liquidated or dissolved..
In short, legal announcements inform about events affecting the identity, purpose, organization or operation of a company. The situations concerned can nevertheless be managed by the actors accompanying the entrepreneurs.
How to do it ?
Today, the publications of legal notices can be done by mail, phone, fax or e-mail. There are also platforms that specialize in this type of formality. The service providers in question offer to handle the distribution of official notices for the company managers.
For the time being, websites are not allowed to publish legal notices. This service is indeed reserved for official newspapers, often in paper format. Nevertheless, online newspapers can serve as an intermediary between companies and paper JALs.
Clients will be relieved of this process.
In concrete terms, the company’s representative can file the announcement directly on the platform. The service provider will then ensure that the notice is published in a paper newspaper that meets all the criteria required by the administration. In general, this type of site also proposes different models of announcements for the most common situations.