While PEA transfer disputes were the main reason for referral to AMF mediation last year, Marielle Cohen-Branche has just recalled this week in her Logbook that the holders of a PEA can request the withdrawal of unlisted securities from a company in compulsory liquidation without this withdrawal leading to the closure of the plan, and this, regardless of the seniority of the PEA.
The presence of unlisted securities is one of the main causes behind the problems with the PEA transfer deadlines noted by the mediation in 2021. For example, when an investor wishes to transfer his plan within a new institution that does not accept these assets, the transaction may be blocked.
The extension or blocking of a transfer may also result from the securities of a company in compulsory liquidation.
Because if the latter has the effect of making the securities of the company worthless, it does not on its own allow the securities to be removed from the portfolio as soon as the judgment opening the compulsory liquidation. ” This only becomes possible when the company no longer has a legal existence, i.e. when the court-ordered liquidation is closed. », Explains the mediator.
Legal evolution
” Before the entry into force of the Pacte law, when this problem arose in a PEA, it gave rise to particular complications, insofar as any blockage in the transfer of a single line of the portfolio paralyzed the transfer of the plan in its completeness”, points out Marielle Cohen Branche.
” It is precisely to overcome this difficulty that I have been led to recommend that worthless securities whose issuer has been placed in compulsory liquidation be removed from the PEA, without this removal constituting a withdrawal within the meaning of the regulations. tax, i.e. without it leading to the closure of the plan if the PEA is less than five years old (read box). This recommendation […] was then included in the so-called “PACTE” law of May 2019”, she specifies.
Custody rights
Insofar as a judicial liquidation procedure can extend over several years, the mediator invites professionals to exempt savers from custody fees likely to be periodically invoiced on these securities that have become worthless. ” In my opinion, failing this, the custody account-keeper takes the risk of being challenged with such a debit on the grounds that the consideration for the invoicing exists but that it is illusory or derisory, the securities being worthless (article 1169 of the Civil Code ). »