French Monetary and Financial Code
In forceA company may only grant a loan as referred to in 3a of article L. 511-6 if the following four conditions are met:
1° On the closing date of each of the two financial years preceding the date on which the loan is granted, the lending company's equity exceeds the amount of the share capital and the gross operating surplus is positive;
2° The net cash position, defined as the value of current financial assets with a maturity of less than one year, less the value of current financial debts with a maturity of less than one year, recorded on the closing date of each of the two financial years of the lending company preceding the date on which the loan is granted, is positive;
3° The total principal amount of all loans granted under 3a of Article L. 511-6 by a single company during a financial year may not exceed a ceiling equal to the smaller of the following two amounts:
a) 50% of the net cash position or 10% of this amount calculated on a consolidated basis at the level of the group of companies to which the lending undertaking belongs ;
b) 10 million euros, 50 million euros or 100 million euros for loans granted respectively by a small or medium-sized enterprise, an intermediate-sized enterprise or a large enterprise, as defined inarticle 3 of decree no. 2008-1354 of 18 December 2008 on the criteria for determining the category to which an enterprise belongs for the purposes of statistical and economic analysis;
4° The total principal amount of all loans granted by the same company to another company during a financial year may not exceed the greater of the following two amounts:
a) 5% of the ceiling defined in 3° ;
b) 25% of the ceiling defined in 3°, up to a maximum of €10,000.
