The Amazon is the longest river in the world, but it is on the Ganges that the longest river cruise is taking place, lasting 51 days, as the Amazon is not navigable over such a distance under pleasure boating conditions.
Some trials, however, are more like an eventful cruise down the Amazon, with many pitfalls and, in the end, a gigantic mouth and a feeling of immensity.
In a case that our firm inherited as trustee in the bankruptcy of a service company, you might think that the problem was the much-criticised backlog of court cases, which is sometimes an easy target.
Following a judgment handed down at the beginning of September 2025, the debtor of the bankrupt company was ordered to pay invoices that were more than 19 years old and for which the cumulative interest amounted to more than double the principal amount.
In other words, after more than 19 years, the bill has tripled for the debtor.
Here, what really caused the disaster was an interminable judicial expertise and, above all, a procedural strategy that did not, in our view, anticipate the risk represented by the accumulation of interests.
???? The debtor's choice was to lump together invoices that were seriously questionable with others that were objectively not.
???? For many years, the legal appraisal process was literally bogged down, without its results shedding any light on the objectively non-contentious invoices.
???? Result: 19 years later, the undisputed invoices are generating colossal interest, while the genuinely questionable invoices have ended up being dismissed by the court.
Here we find a dangerous practice: betting on the opponent's exhaustion by dragging him into lengthy proceedings, encouraged by judicial calendars, distant pleading hearings and tedious investigative measures.
This can work if the creditor company runs out of steam and gives up, because who wants to wait more than 19 years to collect what they owe? We often meet SME managers who give up on collecting «small invoices» because they don't have the energy and optimum legal support to collect what sometimes end up being «bad debts» of tens of thousands of euros!
But it can also have the opposite effect: in this case, the owner of the company retired and, fed up with paying the company's fixed costs, declared bankruptcy.
Undaunted by the urgency of the situation, the trustee pursued the case to the end, with undiminished determination to recover the disputed invoices.
In the end, the interest due after twenty years seems enormous, but it is only the fair application of the law:
- 19 years without payment is practically a generation (in the past) in which the creditor had to live without this money, while having to pay tax on this uncollected turnover;
- the penalty is mechanical: interest compensates for this forced waiting and re-establishes a form of justice, admittedly belated, but one in which the rights of each party are rebalanced.
⚖️ Morality:
- It is dangerous to confuse a dispute strategy with a refusal to pay the undisputed: it is better to identify what is really in dispute and settle what objectively needs to be settled, in order to reduce the impact of any interest that may be due, or even to cut short proceedings in which the creditor considers pursuing the recovery of invoices that are not solidly defensible.
- Exhaustion proceedings are a losing gamble: they expose you to disproportionate fines when you get lost in the meanders of proceedings with investigative measures such as an expert report. A creditor who believes he is in the right may, even if it costs him legal fees, consider that it is a matter of principle. The risk of bankruptcy also reshuffles the deck, since the court-appointed trustee is responsible for recovering assets, and since the trustee is a lawyer, there is no need to outsource this service!
When it comes to commercial litigation, it is essential to anticipate the risk of even a partial conviction.
The BOCHON & PARTNERS «Business Claim» portal gives you an overview of the economic disputes we handle and our preferred approach.
As lawyers, we have a duty to advise our clients in complete independence, and even to go against their desire to litigate «on principle». It is this independence that enables us to adopt a clear position in disputes and to provide each client with the best possible support in defending his or her interests as a whole.
