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Guide · Credit risk

Insolvency monitoring across Europe

A practical guide to detecting bankruptcy, liquidation, and restructuring events across Spain, France, and the EU — what to watch for, where it's published, how to automate the signal.

Updated 3 November 2026

Why it matters

An insolvency event on a customer, supplier, or counterparty is one of the strongest credit-risk signals available. Yet most finance teams only learn about it weeks later — from a delayed invoice, a bounced payment, or a headline. By then the recovery window has closed.

The good news: every EU country has a legal publication-of-record for insolvency events, updated daily. The bad news: each country has its own gazette, format, and vocabulary. This guide covers Spain, France, and pan-EU sources — the three most mature pipelines.

🇪🇸 Spain — BORME insolvency notices

Spanish insolvency (concurso de acreedores) follows the Texto Refundido de la Ley Concursal. The lifecycle of events published in BORME:

  • Preconcurso — preventive filing (art. 583). Early warning.
  • Auto de concurso — insolvency declaration by the court.
  • Nombramiento de administrador concursal — judge appoints a receiver.
  • Fase común — asset inventory + creditor list.
  • Convenio o liquidación — either a creditor agreement or liquidation.
  • Extinción — final dissolution.

🇫🇷 France — BODACC procédures collectives

France's BODACC publishes insolvency notices under the famille=collective family. Procedure types:

  • Sauvegarde — preventive, company still solvent, judge-supervised restructuring.
  • Redressement judiciaire — company in cessation des paiements; 6–18 month observation.
  • Plan de continuation — court-approved multi-year repayment plan.
  • Liquidation judiciaire — winding-up; usually final.
  • Résolution de plan — a previously-approved plan has failed, often triggering liquidation.

Every notice carries the tribunal, date du jugement, and a reference to the SIREN. Prometiam's insolvency index covers corporate distress notices (insolvency, liquidation, administration, winding-up) and dissolutions across France, Germany, the UK, Austria, Norway, Switzerland, Finland, the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Spain, Latvia, Estonia and Singapore (Spanish concursal proceedings are also on /search). Distress notices and dissolutions are reported separately because a dissolution is often a solvent, voluntary closure. Personal and consumer filings are deliberately excluded and are never returned. Live figures are published at the public /coverage endpoint.

🇪🇺 EU Insolvency Register (IRI)

The European e-Justice Insolvency Register consolidates cross-border insolvency procedures from 27 member states under Regulation (EU) 2015/848. Useful for:

  • Pan-EU counterparty screening (a Belgian debtor of a Spanish creditor)
  • Main-proceedings tracking (only one member state can open "main" proceedings; others open secondary)
  • Tracking insolvency practitioners across jurisdictions

The IRI has no public REST API today — Prometiam serves corporate insolvency notices from France, Germany, the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Spain, Latvia, Estonia and Singapore via GET /insolvency/search (Spain's concursal data is also on /search).

Automating the signal

With the Prometiam API you can:

# One-shot screen by name (fuzzy, country-scoped)
GET /search?name=famoussa&country=FR

# Timeline for a known company
GET /company-events/timeline?company_id=12345

# Bulk daily diff — every insolvency event today in ES+FR
GET /search?event_types=insolvency,liquidation&since=2026-04-23

Typical integration pattern:

  1. Nightly cron that calls /search?since={last_run} per watched country.
  2. For each hit, match by NIF (ES) or SIREN (FR) against your customer / supplier table.
  3. If matched, open an alert in your credit / compliance workflow.
  4. Log the event reference (notice_id) for audit.

Compliance + regulatory context

  • IFRS 9 ECL — EU-based auditors now expect counterparty-insolvency monitoring as part of the expected-credit-loss model. Evidence of an automated feed helps.
  • DORA (EU 2022/2554) — financial entities must monitor third-party ICT providers for operational-risk events, including insolvency.
  • PSD2 — payment institutions must notify their home authority upon insolvency of a critical partner.

Frequently asked questions

Where are EU insolvency events published?
Each member state has its own official gazette. Spain publishes concursos in BORME. France publishes procédures collectives in BODACC (family 'collective'). The EU Insolvency Register (IRI) consolidates cross-border procedures from all 27 member states under Regulation 2015/848.
What event types matter for credit risk?
Early warning signals: preventive restructuring (Spain: preconcurso; France: sauvegarde). Critical: insolvency declaration (Spain: auto de concurso; France: redressement judiciaire). Final stage: liquidation (Spain: liquidación; France: liquidation judiciaire). Also watch cessación de actividad (operations halted) and extinción (legal dissolution).
How quickly is insolvency data published?
BORME and BODACC publish the day after a court order is signed — typically 24-72h from the event. The Prometiam API is updated daily, so monitoring detects events within ~24h of first publication.
What is the difference between sauvegarde and redressement judiciaire?
Sauvegarde is preventive: the company is still solvent but wants court protection to restructure. Redressement judiciaire is reactive: the company is already insolvent (cessation des paiements) and the court oversees a 6-18 month observation period to attempt recovery before potentially moving to liquidation judiciaire.
How do I monitor a specific company for insolvency?
Use the Prometiam API's company-events timeline endpoint: GET /company-events/timeline?company_id={id}&type=insolvency will return any insolvency-family event with date, tribunal, and notice reference. Or set a recurring sanctions/insolvency screen via GET /search?name={name}&country=ES|FR.