Rozwiązywanie problemu opóźniania płatności w transakcjach handlowych w Unii Europejskiej

Abstract

Payment periods are an important part of the legal and financial environment of business. Long and/or delayed payment periods increase business’ cash requirements, financial disequilibrium, can cause heavy administrative costs and undermine profitability and competetivness of firms, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises, that are more vulnerable to variations in cash flow and often rely on contracts with large firms who are known to delay payments to a far greater extent than smaller customers. According to some studies only 23% of the late payment is due to the debtor having financial difficulties. The most frequent cause of it is intentional late payment. The Commission’s Recommendation of 12 May 1995 on payment periods in commercial transactions invited Member States to tackle the problem but Commission’s Communication of July 1997 showed that some action had been taken in only a limited number of countries to improve the payments situation between firms. The Commission decided to transform its Recommendation into proposal for a Directive combating late payment in commercial transactions. The final version of that proposal the European Council adopted on 29 July 1999. The European firms will benefit from a statutory right to interest that should be sufficiently high to compensate the creditor for the loss incurred through late payment and will be payable 30 calendar days after the receipt of the invoice unless otherwise specified in the contract. For certain categories of contracts, Member States are able to fix a period of 60 instead of 30 calendar days after which interest will become due. The Directive obliges Member States to ensure that the creditor, pursueing his claims through the court proceedings, will be able to obtain an enforceable title within a period not exceeding 90 calendar days. The Directive constitues considerable progress on the issue of combating late payments but more decisive action on a number of issues could have been undertaken. For instance, the debtor should be obliged to pay full compensation for damages caused by late payments; there should be also a mutual recognition of retention of title in the EU.