You have just learned that SAS Halcyon Retreat is in liquidation, and that the deadline to file your claim has passed, or is about to. Perhaps you filed in the wrong liquidation, that of Château La Cazine. Perhaps nobody told you. Perhaps you assumed that your English solicitor, your bank complaint or your police report covered it.
French insolvency law provides a way back, called relief from forfeiture (relevé de forclusion). It is narrow, it has its own deadline, and for Halcyon investors that deadline falls on 9 January 2027. For investors living outside metropolitan France, that leaves barely two months after their filing deadline of 9 November 2026.
This article explains who can obtain relief, on what grounds, with what evidence, and what remains open to those who cannot.
Can a Halcyon investor who missed the deadline still claim? The short answer
Yes, a Halcyon investor who missed the deadline can still claim, if the supervising judge grants relief from forfeiture. The investor must show that the delay was not their fault, or that the company omitted them from its list of creditors (art. L. 622-26 French Commercial Code). The application must be made within six months of publication of the judgment, that is by 9 January 2027 (same article). The civil-party route in the criminal case remains open regardless.
The deadlines in the Halcyon liquidation
SAS Halcyon Retreat (RCS Guéret 529 259 160) was placed in liquidation by the Commercial Court of Guéret on 23 June 2026. The judgment was published in the BODACC, the official gazette, on 9 July 2026 (BODACC A n° 129, notice 2906). Every deadline runs from that publication.
- Filing deadline, creditors in metropolitan France: 9 September 2026 (two months, art. R. 622-24 French Commercial Code).
- Filing deadline, all other creditors: 9 November 2026 (four months, same article).
- Deadline to apply for relief, for everyone: 9 January 2027 (six months, art. L. 622-26 French Commercial Code).
The relief deadline is the same for all creditors. The extra two months granted to foreign creditors for filing do not extend it. An investor in Brussels, London or Dubai who misses 9 November has two months left, not six.
The text
« A défaut de déclaration dans les délais prévus à l’article L. 622-24, les créanciers ne sont pas admis dans les répartitions et les dividendes à moins que le juge-commissaire ne les relève de leur forclusion s’ils établissent que leur défaillance n’est pas due à leur fait ou qu’elle est due à une omission du débiteur lors de l’établissement de la liste prévue au deuxième alinéa de l’article L. 622-6. Ils ne peuvent alors concourir que pour les distributions postérieures à leur demande. […] L’action en relevé de forclusion ne peut être exercée que dans le délai de six mois. Ce délai court à compter de la publication du jugement d’ouverture […]. Par exception, si le créancier justifie avoir été placé dans l’impossibilité de connaître l’obligation du débiteur avant l’expiration du délai de six mois, le délai court à compter de la date à laquelle il est établi qu’il ne pouvait ignorer l’existence de sa créance. »
Article L. 622-26 of the French Commercial Code (extract)
In English: a creditor who did not file in time is excluded from distributions, unless the supervising judge (juge-commissaire) grants relief. The creditor must prove one of two things. Either the failure was not their fault, or the debtor omitted them from the list of creditors it had to provide.
A common mistake, repeated on review sites, is to think that a claim not filed in time is « legally extinguished ». The text says something narrower: the creditor is not admitted to distributions, unless relief is granted (art. L. 622-26 French Commercial Code). Rights against other persons, such as a guarantor other than the company or the individuals prosecuted in the criminal case, are not affected by that rule.
The grounds for relief
The company left you off its list of creditors
When a liquidation opens, the debtor must give the court-appointed officer, within eight days, a list of its creditors and the amounts owed (arts L. 622-6 and R. 622-5 French Commercial Code). An investor who is missing from that list can obtain relief on that ground alone.
The Cour de cassation treats this ground as a right. The omitted creditor does not have to prove a causal link between the omission and the late filing, and the same applies when no list was drawn up at all (Cass. com., 16 June 2021, n° 19-17.186). Nor does the creditor have to prove that the delay was not their fault (Cass. com., 12 January 2010, n° 09-12.133). Since Ordinance No. 2014-326 of 12 March 2014, the omission no longer needs to be deliberate.
In the Halcyon case, this ground deserves close attention. The company’s legal representative, Robin Barrasford, was arrested in Spain in May 2026 (Insolvency & Law, timeline published on 15 May 2026); he is presumed innocent. Its accounts had not been filed since the year ended 31 December 2022, as the liquidation judgment records. Whether a list of creditors was ever handed to the liquidator, and whether it named the investors, is a question to put to the liquidator, in writing, as soon as possible.
The answer decides the strategy. If no list exists, or if you were left off it, relief is available on that ground alone. If you were listed, the question moves to the next ground.
Since neither causation nor absence of fault has to be proved, an omitted investor’s own slowness to react is not a ground for refusal (Cass. com., 16 June 2021, n° 19-17.186, cited above).
The mechanism is set out in more detail, in French, in an article on le relevé de forclusion en procédure collective.
You were a known creditor and received no notice
The liquidator must warn known creditors, within fifteen days of the opening judgment, that they must file their claims, and the warning must reproduce the rules on deadlines and on relief (art. R. 622-21 French Commercial Code). An investor who was on the list but never received that warning can argue that the failure to file was not their fault.
For investors living in another EU member state, a further text applies. The liquidator must promptly inform known foreign creditors, using a standard notice (Regulation (EU) 2015/848, art. 54). The absence of that notice strengthens the application. Investors in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Gulf or Asia cannot rely on it: the Regulation only covers creditors in other member states, and Denmark does not apply it.
Other circumstances outside your control
The formula « not due to their fault » can cover other situations, which the text leaves to the supervising judge to assess, case by case, on the evidence produced. Mere ignorance of the liquidation is not among the grounds listed in the text, since publication in the BODACC is what starts the clock.
A frequent situation among Halcyon investors deserves mention. Many filed, in good time, in the liquidation of Château La Cazine, whose window for foreign creditors closed on 28 February 2026. They believed they were covered. They were not: SAS Halcyon Retreat is a different company, with its own liquidation. Whether that confusion, fed by the group structure itself, counts as a circumstance outside the investor’s control has not been decided in this case. It is an argument to be made with evidence, not a certainty.
The exception: you could not know of your claim
When a creditor could not know of the debtor’s obligation before the six months expired, the six months run from the date on which they could no longer ignore it (art. L. 622-26 French Commercial Code). This could concern an investor who discovers late that SAS Halcyon Retreat guaranteed their loan note, or that it, and not a British company, was the contracting party. The burden of proof lies on the investor. Noteholders will find the specific issues in a dedicated article on Halcyon loan notes guaranteed by SAS Halcyon Retreat.
Relief is not retroactive
A creditor who obtains relief only shares in the distributions made after their application (art. L. 622-26 French Commercial Code). Every week lost before applying can cost a share of a distribution. The application should therefore be made as soon as the delay is known, without waiting for 9 January 2027.
Relief does not decide whether the claim will be admitted: that question is examined afterwards, in the ordinary verification of claims. Sending the proof of claim to the liquidator at the same time as the application for relief avoids losing further time.
What to put in the application
The application is addressed to the supervising judge of the liquidation of SAS Halcyon Retreat. It should contain:
- the ground relied on, and the evidence for it: the absence of any notice from the liquidator, the list of creditors if obtained, correspondence showing the confusion between the two liquidations;
- the proof of claim: contract, proof of payment, amounts in euros converted at the exchange rate of 23 June 2026 (art. L. 622-25 French Commercial Code);
- the chronology: when and how you learned of the liquidation, and what you did next.
An application that simply states « I did not know » will fail. An application that shows why you could not have known, or that the company never listed you, has a real chance.
If relief is refused or out of time: what remains
Missing the liquidation does not end every route.
- The criminal case. Civil-party status in the Bordeaux investigation is independent of the liquidation (art. 87 French Code of Criminal Procedure). A civil party awarded damages can be paid by the French asset recovery agency from assets confiscated from the persons convicted (art. 706-164 French Code of Criminal Procedure). Those assets are not the company’s assets and are not distributed by the liquidator; their reach abroad is explained in an article on seizing Halcyon assets abroad.
- Other debtors. A claim not filed in the liquidation of SAS Halcyon Retreat does not prevent a claim against a British company that received the money, or against a guarantor other than SAS Halcyon Retreat, under the law that governs them.
- English routes. Bank reimbursement, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the FSCS do not depend on the French liquidation; they are compared with the French routes in a dedicated article on Halcyon claims in England and in France.
The investor who has missed everything in the liquidation can still be first in line in the criminal case.
The French proceedings as a whole, and the two liquidations, are set out in a separate guide.
Invested in the Halcyon Retreat resort in France? Where your claim really stands
Your case, not the general rule
Relief from forfeiture is granted on evidence, case by case. The same facts can be presented in a way that succeeds or in a way that fails. The facts count as much as the law, and that is where a lawyer’s work begins.
Valentin Simonnet is a member of the Paris Bar (avocat au Barreau de Paris). He practises in business litigation and white-collar criminal defence.
