Doing Business in France - RSM International

2.4 The implied trust
The trust is a well-known English mechanism. In very simple terms, it allows the ownership
of an estate to be transferred to a trustee. The trustee manages the estate and in turn,
transfers the ownership to a beneficiary.
But the trust institution does not exist under the French law.
A solution may be to use a very new French institution: the fiducie.
The fiducie was introduced into French law in 2007. It is intended to be similar to the trust
mechanism, although, as it will be described below, its use is more limited.
Since August 2008, the fiducie can be created by an individual or a legal person.
However, the trustee (“fiduciaire”) can only be a bank, a credit company, or a solicitor. No
such limitations apply to the beneficiary, i.e. anybody can be a beneficiary.
Tax is only due when the estate is transferred to the beneficiary. Therefore the fiducie
has a distinct tax advantage over the trust.
Furthermore, like a trust, the fiduciaire’s estate is divided into two separate groups:
a personal estate and a “fiducial” estate. This can be very useful in the event of a
bankruptcy for example.
Under French law the fiducie contract must be drafted with great care. Some mandatory
clauses must be included in the contract; if not the whole operation could be cancelled.
For those reasons, the drafting of a fiducie contract can be more complicated than the
setting up of a trust.
The fiducie is not used as much in France as in other countries.
14 | DOING BUSINESS IN FRANCE