Paris Court of Appeal Orders Bailiff Firm to Repay Fees Over €4.39 Million Bank Seizure
In France, 18 employees seized €4.39 million from the accounts of Morocco’s Banque Centrale Populaire following labor court rulings. Six years later, the Paris Court of Appeal has held the firm responsible for carrying out the seizure: the judgments were enforced before they had been properly served on the bank.
On April 20, 2020, €4,390,094.08 was seized from the accounts of Banque Centrale Populaire held at Natixis. Behind the operation were eighteen employees who had won rulings from the Paris labor court in September 2019. They entrusted enforcement to the bailiff firm Venezia et Associés, which carried out the seizures.
The funds were handed over to the employees’ lawyer in July. In the meantime, BCP challenged the operation. The judgments had been sent to the Casablanca prosecutor’s office, but the bank did not receive them until June 2020. They were formally served on the bank by a bailiff on July 27, three months after the seizure.
On Bladi.net : He claimed 45 264 euros from Banque Populaire: the court finds that he owed it 38 845 euros
On September 24, 2020, a judge overturned the eighteen seizures and ordered the employees to return the sums they had received. The bank also sued the firm, arguing that it should have checked the validity of the documents before freezing its accounts. The case reached the Court of Cassation, which in May 2023 ordered a fresh review of the firm’s liability.
Bailiff firm held liable six years after seizures
On October 1, 2026, the Paris Court of Appeal found that the Venezia firm had committed an error. Before carrying out a seizure, a bailiff must ensure that the judgments are enforceable. The labor court rulings had not been properly served on BCP by the date of the operation, the appeal court ruling notes.
The firm was ordered to repay €21,796.40 in seizure fees, with interest, and to pay €5,000 in damages for the funds being unavailable. It must also pay €10,000 in legal costs and bear the court costs.
The bank was also seeking €384,713.08 for sums it said it had been unable to recover from some employees. The judges ruled the claim inadmissible: the difficulty of recovering the money was already known when the initial submissions were filed, but compensation for it had not been requested at that point.
