‘Getting the money owed to them back in time is becoming a matter of survival for many businesses at the moment. However, the currently existing legal instruments cannot provide the legitimate, fast, and efficient ways of getting these sums back. An arbitration court might keep looking into the accounts receivable-related cases for years, and bankruptcy proceedings also take a long time to complete. In fact, this time is long enough for a debtor to close down or remove all of its liquid assets elsewhere. As a result, getting one’s money paid back turns out to be extremely difficult,’ says Europe-Asia Information and Consulting Center’s GD, President of Ural Center of Nongovernmental Security Institutions Association, and member of the Academy of Security, Defense and Law-and-Order Oleg Borisov.

‘One way to get one’s accounts receivable back is to sell them to a special debt-collecting agency. One should bear in mind, though, that a significant portion of the total sum will be lost for the creditor in this case. One reason for this is that such agencies do not enjoy any exclusive rights under existing Russian legislation; nor do they have any supernatural powers allowing them to collect debts more efficiently. They have to employ exactly the same methods within the same legal framework as all the other economic market players, and any ‘special’ measures might be seen as a violation of the law,’ Oleg Borisov explains.