History

Flint Bishop was approached by the client to explore an alternative to their costly and time-consuming disconnection process, in order to swiftly collect all overdue debts from the business customers that they supply energy and water to.

We took the time to gain a thorough understanding of the client’s requirements before creating a solution designed to achieve their goals. Their primary objective was for us to swiftly obtain CCJs against as many overdue debtors as possible in order to:

1. make a statement the marketplace that they would take legal action against non-paying debtors; and
2. to help secure payments of the outstanding debts in a timely manner.

Although we fully understood the client’s desire to take swift and decisive litigation action, we were conscious of the potential cost implications to them when adopting a blanket policy to issue court proceedings in bulk.

So, we recommended to the client that we first implement a short, but intensive pre-litigation debt recovery process to help maximise collections at an early stage without issuing court proceedings where this was possible to achieve.

Any debts which remained uncollected following this two-week process would then be immediately reviewed by Flint Bishop for litigation suitability and cost-effectiveness, with a justified recommendation provided to the client for every case.

Our debt recovery case management system is linked directly to the County Court Business Centre (CCBC), allowing us to swiftly and easily issue court proceedings in bulk following approval from the client, as speed was of the essence.

Debt recovery relating to ‘live’ supply debts needs to be managed very carefully, due to the outstanding balances constantly changing as new invoices are raised. As bulk litigation on ‘live’ accounts was new to the client, we worked closely with them throughout the set-up, with structured weekly calls during the first few months of the project to ensure that everything ran smoothly.

Our Data Analytics team has also been closely involved with the client, playing a key role in the ongoing success of the project. Ensuring that recoveries are optimised in the most cost-effective manner and providing the client with rich data reporting and evaluation.

Results

In the first 3 months of the project alone, the client referred 2,106 business debts, with a combined value of £7.5m.

Through the implementation of our recommended strategy, Flint Bishop has managed to recover £7m at a pre-litigation stage without any court costs incurred.

Of the 1,196 court claims that have been issued, 852 judgments have been achieved, and Flint Bishop has recovered a staggering £1.7m, which has massively surpassed the client’s expectations.

In addition, this has been achieved in a much more cost-effective way than the client believed was possible.

We have recovered in excess of £1.1m in additional costs and interest over and above the principal debt amounts, meaning that the project has actually generated a profit for the client to the delight of their senior board of directors.