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Are you a client? You should contact your private banker. 
You are not a client but would like to have more information about Societe Generale Private Banking? Please fill in the form below.

Local contacts

France: +33 (0)1 53 43 87 00 (9am - 6pm)
Luxembourg: +352 47 93 11 1 (8:30am - 5:30pm)
Monaco: +377 97 97 58 00 (9/12am - 2/5pm)
Switzerland: Geneva +41 22 819 02 02
& Zurich +41 44 218 56 11 (8:30am - 5:30pm)

You would like to contact us about the protection of your personal data?

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Private Banking France by sending an email to the following address: protectiondesdonnees@societegenerale.fr.

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Luxembourg by sending an email to the following address: lux.dpooffice@socgen.com.

For customers residing in Italy, please contact BDO, the external provider in charge of Data Protection, by sending an email to the following address: lux.dpooffice-branch-IT@socgen.com

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco by sending an email to the following address: list.mon-privmonaco-dpo@socgen.com

Please contact the Data Protection Officer of Societe Generale Private Banking Switzerland by sending an email to the following address : ch-dataprotection@socgen.com

You need to make a claim?

Societe Generale Private Banking aims to provide you with the best possible quality of service. However, difficulties may sometimes arise in the operation of your account or in the use of the services made available to you.

Your private banker  is your privileged contact to receive and process your claim.

 If you disagree with or do not get a response from your advisor, you can send your claim to the direction  of Societe Generale Private Banking France by email to the following address: FR-SGPB-Relations-Clients@socgen.com or by mail to: 

Société Générale Private Banking France
29 boulevard Haussmann CS 614
75421 Paris Cedex 9

Societe Generale Private Banking France undertakes to acknowledge receipt of your claim within 10 (ten) working days from the date it is sent and to provide you with a response within 2 (two) months from the same date. If we are unable to meet this 2 (two) month deadline, you will be informed by letter.

In the event of disagreement with the bank  or of a lack of response from us within 2 (two) months of sending your first written claim, or within 15 (fifteen) working days for a claim about a payment service, you may refer the matter free of charge, depending on the nature of your claim, to:  

 

The Consumer Ombudsman at the FBF

The Consumer Ombudsman at the Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF – French Banking Federation) is competent for disputes relating to services provided and contracts concluded in the field of banking operations (e.g. management of deposit accounts, credit operations, payment services etc.), investment services, financial instruments and savings products, as well as the marketing of insurance contracts.

The FBF Ombudsman will reply directly to you within 90 (ninety) days from the date on which she/he receives all the documents on which the request is based. In the event of a complex dispute, this period may be extended. The FBF Ombudsman will formulate a reasoned position and submit it to both parties for approval.

The FBF Ombudsman can be contacted on the following website: www.lemediateur.fbf.fr or by mail at:

Le Médiateur de la Fédération Bancaire Française
CS 151
75422 Paris CEDEX 09

 

The Ombudsman of the AMF

The Ombudsman of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF - French Financial Markets Authority) is also competent for disputes relating to investment services, financial instruments and financial savings products.

For this type of dispute, as a consumer customer, you have therefore a choice between the FBF Ombudsman and the AMF Ombudsman. Once you have chosen one of these two ombudsmen, you can no longer refer the same dispute to the other ombudsman.

The AMF Ombudsman can be contacted on the AMF website: www.amf-france.org/fr/le-mediateur or by mail at:

Médiateur de l'AMF, Autorité des Marchés Financiers
17 place de la Bourse
75082 PARIS CEDEX 02
FRANCE


The Insurance Ombudsman

The Insurance Ombudsman is competent for disputes concerning the subscription, application or interpretation of insurance contracts.

The Insurance Ombudsman can be contacted using the contact details that must be mentioned in your insurance contract.

To ensure that your requests are handled effectively, any claim addressed to Societe Generale Luxembourg should be sent to:

Private banking Claims department
11, Avenue Emile Reuter
L-2420 Luxembourg

Or by email to clienteleprivee.sglux@socgen.com and for customers residing in Italy at societegenerale@unapec.it

The Bank will acknowledge your request within 10 working days and provide a response to your claim within 30 working days of receipt. If your request requires additional processing time (e.g. if it involves complex research), the Bank will inform you of this situation within the same 30-working day timeframe.

In the event that the response you receive does not meet your expectations, we suggest the following:

Initially, you may wish to contact the Societe Generale Luxembourg Division responsible for handling claims, at the following address:

Corporate Secretariat of Societe Generale Luxembourg
11, Avenue Emile Reuter
L-2420 Luxembourg

If the response from the Division responsible for claims does not resolve the claim, you may wish to contact Societe Generale Luxembourg's supervisory authority, the “Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier”/“CSSF” (Luxembourg Financial Sector Supervisory Commission):

By mail: 283, Route d’Arlon L-1150 Luxembourg
By email:
direction@cssf.lu

Any claim addressed to Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco should be sent by e-mail to the following address: servicequalite.privmonaco@socgen.com or by mail to our dedicated department: 

Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco
Middle Office – Service Réclamation 
11 avenue de Grande Bretagne
98000 Monaco

The Bank will acknowledge your request within 2 working days after receipt and provide a response to your claim within a maximum of 30 working days of receipt. If your request requires additional processing time (e.g. if it involves complex researches…), the Bank will inform you of this situation within the same 30-working day timeframe. 

In the event that the response you receive does not meet your expectations, we suggest to contact the Societe Generale Private Banking Direction that handles the claims by mail at the following address: 

Societe Generale Private Banking Monaco
Secrétariat Général
11 avenue de Grande Bretagne 
98000 Monaco

Any claim addressed to the Bank can be sent by email to:

sgpb-reclamations.ch@socgen.com
 

Clients may also contact the Swiss Banking Ombudsman: 

www.bankingombudsman.ch

 

Recommendations and jurisprudential reconsiderations in support of business transfers in France

In a recent report, the Business Delegation of the French Senate outlines the findings of a follow-up review of company transfers:

  • as many as 700,000 businesses will need to be transferred over the next 10 years;

  • 25% of business owners are over 60 years of age;

  • the number of disposals has decreased, despite the modernisation of the legal framework.

Handing over ownership in the event of retirement or as an inheritance, is a crucial step in the life of a company, as knowledge, patents, jobs, competitiveness, and even economic self-sufficiency are at stake.

This is especially so in France where there is a lack of intermediate-sized enterprises (ISE), despite their importance to innovation, exports, and employment. It takes an average of 21 years for a small business to become an ISE, which is why it must be set on a path of long-term growth that factors in a transfer in its life cycle.

The Business Delegation of the Senate has drawn up 11 recommendations around two priorities: to secure the current framework; and to simplify business transfer formalities.

Two of these recommendations stand out. The first is to better inform business owners to give them greater confidence in what is a sound public policy requiring urgent implementation; the second is to “sanctify the Pacte Dutreil” — a legal mechanism providing for the free transfer of businesses. Subject to conditions (agreeing to a lock-up period of four to six years for the transferred shares(1), and occupying a suitable leadership position), the tax base on gift or inheritance duties can be reduced by 75% or more. For direct heirs — parent to child — the marginal tax rate of 45% can go down to 11.25%, and even 5.6% in some cases.

Despite extensive revisions in December 2021 to clarify the Dutreil administrative notes, business transfers were still a feature in the law and the courts in 2022.

1. In principle, and under certain conditions, only operating companies and active holding companies — known as holdings animatrices — are eligible for the tax exemption on gift and inheritance duties afforded by the Dutreil scheme. Passive holding companies are excluded as they do not run an operational activity.

That said, the Dutreil scheme can apply indirectly if the shares of a passive holding company that holds shares in an operating company are transferred. The precautions set out by the tax authorities should be observed:

  • While the tax authorities do not prevent a company from unilaterally concluding a share lock-up arrangement, for practical reasons and in the interest of caution, they recommend that the business owner have full ownership of at least one direct share in the operating company.

  • There should be no more than two layers of separation between the holding company and the operating company.

  • In principle, the Dutreil scheme applies to the value of the passive holding company shares, proportional to the value of its gross assets. This value comprises the stake in the operating subsidiary, the shares of which are subject to a collective or unilateral lock-up arrangement. In its ruling of 19 January 2022 (no. 19-19309), France’s highest court of appeal, the Cour de cassation, stated that the book value of gross assets must include unrealised capital gains as well as unrealised capital losses.

2. Under the 1st Amending Finance Law for 2022, the condition that requires the transferred company to have an operational activity must be met when the collective lock-up arrangement is concluded, up until the end of the individual lock-up arrangement.

The same applies to active holding companies, which fall into the same category as operating companies.

The law runs counter to a Cour de cassation ruling of 25 May 2022: in the absence of deliberate clarification in the law, the condition that requires the target company to have an eligible activity need only be met on the date the taxable base is generated, and not over the entire duration of the lock-up arrangements.

3. The transfer of mixed holding company shares is also eligible for the favourable Dutreil scheme, so long as it is first and foremost an active holding company.

In its ruling no. 435562 of 23 January 2020, the Council of State and the administrative doctrine determines this preponderance according to a list of criteria as well as the market value of the operating companies managed by the active holding company which should be over 50% of its total asset value.

In its ruling of 24 October 2022(2), the Paris Cour d’appel agreed to include a real estate complex belonging to a holding company in the numerator used to determine its predominant quality, and assigned the company operating subsidiaries under its active management.

Note, however, that for the tax authorities a real estate subsidiary of an active holding company that leases its assets to the actively-managed subsidiaries remains a capital asset that would not be included in the “Dutreil” numerator.

Together with your advisor, our experts are on hand to assist help you as you consider your options.

 


(1) A collective or unilateral two-year lock-up arrangement concluded by the signatory/signatories of the pact; the arrangement may be subject to certain conditions as well as to an individual lock-up arrangement of four years concluded by the beneficiaries of the shares.

(2) no. 21/00555

Would you like to discuss this subject further with us?

This is an advertising document, which holds no contractual value. It is not intended to provide an investment service, does not constitute investment advice nor a personal recommendation in insurance, nor any form of canvassing, nor legal, tax or accounting advice from Societe Generale Private Banking France. The data contained in this document are provided for information purposes only, are subject to change without notice, and are aimed at helping guide the decision-making process. Under no circumstances does any information on past performances contained in this document guarantee future performances. Before acquiring any investment service, financial product or insurance product, potential investors (i) must read all the information contained in the detailed documentation on the service or product under consideration (prospectus, regulations, "Key Investor Information Document", Term Sheet, contractual terms of the investment service, etc.), paying particular attention to that concerning the associated risks; and (ii) consult with their legal and tax experts to assess the legal and fiscal implications of the product or service under consideration. Investors shall obtain more detailed information from their Private Banker who can also assist in determining eligibility to the product or service under consideration which may be subject to conditions, and whether such product or service meets their needs. Accordingly, Societe Generale Private Banking shall under no circumstances be held liable for any decision made by an investor on the basis of this information alone. These forecasts about future performances are based on assumptions which may not be realised. The scenarios presented are estimates of future performance, based on historical data on how the value of an investment varies and/or on current market conditions, and are not precise indications. The yield obtained by investors is susceptible to change depending on the performance of the market and on the holding period of the investment by the investor. Future performance may be subject to tax in accordance with the personal situation of each investor, and is susceptible to change in the future.

For a more comprehensive definition and description, please refer to the prospectus of the product or, if necessary, to other regulatory documentation (where applicable) before making any investment decisions.

This document is confidential and intended solely for  the recipient; it may not be made public or disclosed to any third party, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the prior written agreement of Societe Generale Private Banking. Click here for more information.