The reform of the trade and companies register is taking shape The reform of the trade and companies register is taking shape

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This was one of Emmanuel Macron's announcements in July: the competence for the management of the RCS (trade and companies register) will be transferred from the State to the Country, which plans to entrust its management to the sector. private via a public service delegation. A change that should take one to two years to be effective.

The trade and companies register is the bane of entrepreneurs. Attached to the Mixed Commercial Court, its registry is responsible for keeping it up to date – registration of companies, change of company statutes, deregistrations, for example – and for issuing deeds such as Kbis extracts on request. But the registry has been singled out for years for its slowness – it takes up to 5 months for certain acts – recently aggravated by the health crisis. It is made up of only 4 state officials but, recognizes Christophe Tissot, the president of the mixed commercial court, "they should be 10 or 11." An understaffing which also prevents the RCS from modernizing, it that is to say to evolve towards a dematerialized service.

In May 2021, during his preparatory visit to the President of the Republic's trip, the Minister for Overseas Territories Sébastien Lecornu was questioned on this subject by the employers' unions. In July, the Country asked the State to transfer this competence. A request to which Paris readily acceded: company law is a competence of the country, and the State therefore has no reason to invest in improving the service.

Once the competence has been transferred, the Country must make a choice: to keep the RCS as an administrative service, which goes against the will displayed by the government to put the administration on a lean diet, and is not necessarily guarantees greater efficiency. Or make it the subject of a public service delegation, to entrust the private sector with the task of developing and creating and managing the modern IT tool that is missing from the registry of the mixed commercial court.

It is for the moment this second option which seems to be favored by the government. If a DSP is put in place, it will be aimed at IT companies which are used to managing large files. A mission led by the vice-president of the National Council of commercial court clerks, Thomas Denfer, is scheduled for fenua during the month of October. The State has already proceeded with the privatization of commercial court registries, both in mainland France and in several overseas departments. In New Caledonia, the choice was made in 2014 to entrust this mission to the Department of Economic Affairs. In any case, the change should take at least a year, if not two.