Is a statute-barred debt a recoverable unjustified liability?

In 2005, a company recorded a liability to a group affiliate in connection with the acquisition of real estate. According to the contract signed on September 2, 2005, the purchase price was to be paid no later than July 1, 2007. The liability also accrued interest at a rate of 2% per year.

Following a tax audit covering the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years,administration that the debt was time-barred and constituted an unjustified liability, and consequently reinstated it in the company’s financial results.

The Administrative Court of Appeals, having heard the case, will first find that the debt became time-barred as of the close of the 2013 fiscal year.

It will then reject the company’s argument that it had waived the statute of limitations by continuing to list the debt as a liability. The Court finds that the accounting entries were not sufficiently precise to constitute a tacit waiver of the statute of limitations.

It also rejects the company’s argument that it had interrupted the statute of limitations by making partial payments. The Court finds that the wording of the payments does not make it possible to determine that it was the debt in question that had been settled and that, therefore, this could not have interrupted the statute of limitations.

CAA Bordeaux, Jan. 15, 2026, No. 23BX02914

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