I. What the week contains, and what it does not

The back-to-work week is thin, and it is better to say so at the outset than to pad the note. The Journaux officiels Nos. 0203 to 0208, from 1 to 6 September 2026 (no issue was published on 31 August), contain no substantive text on company law, commercial law, competition law or insolvency. Only one text truly falls within scope: the order approving accounting regulations published on 3 September. As for the courts, the commercial chamber of the Cour de cassation had, at the date of this note, released no judgment dated within the period, as hearings resume right after the judicial vacation. The Autorité de la concurrence has issued nothing since its opinion 26-A-05 of 17 July 2026 and its decisions 26-MC-01 and 26-MC-02 of 8 July 2026. The AMF Enforcement Committee published no decision during the period.

The substance of the week therefore lies elsewhere: in two entries into force scheduled for 1 September, one of which upends companies’ day-to-day practice, and in a Court of Justice judgment of 3 September that bears directly on the publication of shareholder data.

II. E-invoicing becomes mandatory on 1 September 2026

This is the regulatory event of the week, even though the underlying texts are older. Decree No. 2026-677 of 27 July 2026 and the order of 27 July 2026, both on the roll-out of electronic invoicing and published in JORF No. 0174 of 28 July 2026, completed the regulatory framework. Ordinance No. 2026-671 of 27 July 2026, published the same day, made the corresponding adjustments to the Code on taxes on goods and services, notably Articles L. 216-35 and L. 216-37.

Since 1 September 2026, every VAT-registered business established in France must be able to receive an invoice in structured electronic format, whatever its size and tax regime. The obligation to issue, together with reporting transaction and payment data to the tax authorities, currently applies only to large and mid-sized companies. SMEs, very small businesses and micro-enterprises switch over on 1 September 2027. No general grace period has been granted: the ability to receive is required now, and it means connecting to a platform.

The decree of 27 July also changed the vocabulary, which matters for drafting contracts in progress. The expression « partner dematerialisation platform operator », with its acronym PDP, disappears from the General Tax Code in favour of « approved platform », the public invoicing portal being refocused on its directory function. Clauses still referring to PDPs will need to be reviewed. One hundred and forty-nine platforms were on the list of approved platforms on the date of entry into force.

The impact goes beyond tax. The invoice ceases to be one means of proof among others and becomes an electronic writing whose authenticity and integrity are presumed by the very transmission mechanism. Disputes over proof of a claim, the enforceability of general terms of sale and jurisdiction clauses printed on the back of invoices will shift accordingly. There is as yet no decision of the commercial chamber under the generalised system, and none is likely before 2028: for now we are reasoning prospectively.

III. Approval of four regulations of the French accounting standards authority (ANC)

The order of 12 August 2026 (NOR: ECOT2617843A), published in JORF No. 0205 of 3 September 2026, text No. 18, approves ANC regulations Nos. 2026-01 and 2026-02 of 9 January 2026, No. 2026-03 of 6 March 2026 and No. 2026-04 of 4 May 2026. The order came into force on 4 September 2026. The approved regulations apply to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027, with the option of early application to the financial year in progress at the date of publication.

Regulation 2026-01 is the most substantial. It entirely rewrites section 9 of chapter I of title VI of book II of the general chart of accounts, on crypto-assets and similar items, and aligns it with Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 of 31 May 2023 on markets in crypto-assets and with Article L. 226-1 of the Monetary and Financial Code. New Article 619-1 defines the category; Articles 619-2 et seq. govern the accounting treatment of issuances according to the rights and obligations attached. An issuance with the features of a repayable debt, even temporarily, is recorded as borrowings and similar debts. An issuance representing services yet to be performed or goods yet to be delivered is recorded as deferred income. Where there is no explicit or implicit obligation towards subscribers, the sums collected are deemed definitively acquired by the issuer and recognised as income. Composite issuances are broken down, each component following its own regime. E-money tokens remain outside this framework.

Regulation 2026-02 amends ANC Regulation No. 2014-07 on the accounts of banking sector undertakings. Regulation 2026-03 concerns the accounting rules for trade unions, collective management organisations for copyright and related rights, agricultural cooperatives and their unions, and non-profit private legal persons. Regulation 2026-04 rewrites Article 515-1 of the general chart of accounts on accounting for income tax and narrows the definition of exceptional items, now reserved for income and expenses directly linked to a major and unusual event, the classification chosen in the first financial year then applying until the consequences of the event are exhausted.

IV. « Ultra-fast fashion » penalty: in force since 1 September 2026

The order of 24 August 2026 (NOR: TECP2617044A), published in JORF No. 0200 of 28 August 2026, text No. 9, amends the order of 23 November 2022 setting the specifications for eco-organisations and individual systems in the extended producer responsibility scheme for textiles, footwear and household linen. It implements Article L. 541-10-3 of the Environment Code and came into force on 1 September 2026.

The mechanism adjusts the financial contributions paid by producers to the eco-organisation according to a durability coefficient built on two equally weighted criteria, range breadth and incentives to repair, each expressed as an index between 0 and 1. The penalty may reach 50% of the product’s price, capped at EUR 12 in 2026 and EUR 19.50 in 2030. The calculation rules are set out in a note published on the environment ministry’s website, the methodology of Articles D. 541-240 et seq. of the Environment Code being deemed to comply. For the retailers concerned, this is an immediate cost of placing goods on the market and a classification question to be dealt with now.

V. Commercial leases: provisions applicable since 26 August 2026

Outside the strict period but freshly applicable, Articles 61 to 63 of Law No. 2026-403 of 26 May 2026 simplifying economic life should be recalled. For transfers taking place on or after 26 August 2026, the obligation to return the security deposit attaches to the property and passes to the new landlord. This reverses by statute the position taken by the third civil chamber since its judgment of 25 February 2004 (No. 02-16.589), which treated it as a personal debt of the original owner not passing to a successor in title. Correspondingly, the transfer automatically terminates the other guarantees obtained by the former landlord, who must return the documents and release them within six months.

The last paragraph of Article L. 145-40 of the Commercial Code also requires the deposit to be returned within no more than three months of the return of the keys, extended to six months for other guarantees. These provisions apply to current leases where the keys are returned after 26 August 2026. Handing back the keys against a receipt or by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt thus becomes the act that triggers the time limit, and failing to do so means an occupancy indemnity keeps running.

VI. CJEU, 3 September 2026, Case C-798/24: publishing the data of all shareholders breaches the GDPR

This is the decision of the week, and it comes from Luxembourg. On a reference from the Constitutional Court of Latvia, following an action brought by seventeen minority shareholders of a public limited company, the Court of Justice was asked about a Latvian provision requiring information on the shareholders of public limited companies to be made available to the public. For a natural person, this information included first and last name, personal identification number or date of birth, the number and date of issue of the identity document, the issuing country and authority, contact address, email address, and the class, number and nominal value of the shares and the number of votes attached. All of it was accessible online, unconditionally, and could be downloaded in bulk by an unidentified user.

The Court first holds that Article 14(d) of Directive (EU) 2017/1132 does not require publication of information on all shareholders of a public limited company, minority shareholders included. The disclosure obligation relied on therefore did not exist in EU law.

It then holds that Articles 5 and 6 of the GDPR, read in the light of Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, preclude such national legislation. The interference is described as serious: the data make it possible to build a profile of the shareholder’s wealth and to identify the sectors and companies in which he invests, and they are accessible to a potentially unlimited number of people. Once published, they can be stored and redistributed. On the objective of transparency in the business climate, the Court is categorical: publishing the data of all shareholders, and minority shareholders in particular, serves no purpose with regard to that objective, so the legislation is neither appropriate nor necessary. On the two other objectives relied on, preventing money laundering and terrorist financing on the one hand and enforcing national, international and EU sanctions on the other, it finds the measure neither necessary nor proportionate: less intrusive means exist, namely limiting access to persons with a legitimate interest and, for sanctions, restricting publication to the data of listed persons.

The judgment follows directly from the Grand Chamber judgment of 22 November 2022, Luxembourg Business Registers (Joined Cases C-37/20 and C-601/20), on public access to beneficial ownership information. The line is now clear: for the publication of personal data linked to shareholdings, access conditional on showing a legitimate interest becomes the standard, and open access the exception that must be justified. National registers still putting data online indiscriminately are exposed. In French law, the question arises less for the trade and companies register than for how access to the register of beneficial owners is organised, where the cursor has already moved since 2022 without being definitively set.

VII. Domestic decisions and academic commentary

No judgment of the commercial chamber dated between 31 August and 6 September 2026 had been released at the date of this note. This is the expected consequence of the judicial calendar. September judgments will start to be published in the following days, and next week’s digest should return to a normal volume. As for the authorities, the Autorité de la concurrence has not gone beyond opinion 26-A-05 of 17 July 2026 on competition in the AI agents sector, which follows up its own-initiative inquiry of 9 January 2026, and the two interim-measures decisions 26-MC-01 and 26-MC-02 of 8 July 2026 issued on applications by the Alliance de la presse d’information générale and the Société des droits voisins de la presse. The AMF Enforcement Committee published nothing.

In the absence of new decisions, the week’s academic output concerns earlier texts and judgments. An analysis of developments in commercial arbitration and securing international contracts was published on 6 September 2026; a study published on 12 August on invoices in commercial relations, the probative force of electronic writings and the generalisation of e-invoicing is highly topical again this week. Still under discussion is the Court of Justice judgment of 12 February 2026, Case C-864/24, on acting in concert and threshold-crossing disclosures, which in principle makes concert action conditional on an agreement understood as a binding meeting of minds and limits national extensions of the concept. The commentary published in the Bulletin Joly Sociétés (2026, No. 6) openly raises the question of a narrower French reading of Article L. 233-10 of the Commercial Code.

The firm advises on French business law, including commercial relationships and competition disputes.

Previous edition: Weekly Digest: Business Law (25-31 August 2026)
Our practice: lawyer in French business law