In a judgment of 27 November 2025 (RG 21/05720), the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence sets out important clarifications regarding disputes over the annual percentage rate (APR).
👉 In this case, Sorgem Évaluation acted alongside Société Générale, which had succeeded to the rights of Société Marseillaise de Crédit, in a dispute concerning the rates applied to short-term financing (overdrafts and Dailly factoring).
Our remit consisted of:
• analysing the financial terms actually applied,
• verifying the methods used to calculate the TEG,
• challenging the assumptions made by the opposing expert,
• and assessing the economic consequences of any alleged irregularities.
The Court is clearly in line with recent case law regarding sanctions relating to the TEG:
➡️ interest is no longer automatically void,
➡️ the sanction takes the form of forfeiture of the right to interest,
➡️ determined by the court on the basis, in particular, of the loss suffered by the borrower.
In this case, the liquidator’s claim, based on the wholesale invalidity of the interest, was dismissed on the grounds that they had failed to seek and demonstrate forfeiture based on demonstrable harm.
This judgement confirms that disputes concerning the TEG can no longer be approached from a purely formal perspective. It now requires an economic analysis of both the components of the TEG and the loss suffered, which reinforces the role of financial expertise in such disputes.
This decision illustrates very clearly that the debate no longer centres solely on the calculation of the rate, but on its actual effects on the borrower.
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