15 Jan Undisputed debt collection now applicable to foreign companies

Since October 2018, the undisputed debt collection procedure is also applicable when one of the parties is established in one of the seven European countries whose database of companies has been recognized as equivalent to our Crossroad Bank for Enterprises (CBE).

In July 2016, the running of a new administrative procedure for the recovery of undisputed debts in commercial matters was entrusted to the bailiffs. We discussed it in two of our previous newsletters, i.e. the ones from 8 December 2015 and 29 August 2016.

Debts from Debtors or creditors, unregistered to the CBE, were then expressly excluded from the benefits of this procedure. However, when it comes to foreign companies, only those with one or more business units in Belgium are required to register with the CBE.

In order to extend the application of the collection procedure, it was decided to assimilate registrations in other Member States’ database of companies to registrations in the CEB’s database, but only if the equivalence of these databases with the CEB has been formally acknowledged by Royal Decree.

This is now the case for seven European countries: the Netherlands, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain and Austria (Royal Decree of 17 August 2018).

When the creditor or debtor is registered within these databases, the undisputed debt collection procedure is now available, provided that the other criteria limiting its application scope are met.

For extra information on the subject, feel free to contact Mr. Guillaume RUE esq. (guillaume.rue@cairnlegal.be).

Best regards,

The Cairn Legal team.