The Client is a factoring company and we were pursuing recovery of the money due to them under the terms of a written indemnity, which had been provided to them by a Director of the Company, which had gone into liquidation.
The Director refused to pay the money due, claiming that there were invoices he had submitted to his customers, and if the Client collected these invoices, there would be sufficient funds to repay this debt. He further claimed that the client was in breach of the factoring agreement by failing to recover these funds.
We were able to demonstrate that under the terms of the factoring agreement, the client was under no legal obligation to recover these funds. They were obliged only to telephone a certain number of customers to verify they had received the goods for which they had been invoiced, and to send out monthly statements, both of which they had done.
Judgment was successfully obtained against the indemnifier. However, he continued to refuse to pay, he claimed to be unemployed and have no assets, he refused even to submit a realistic payment proposal. In view of this, our client was left with no alternative than to pursue bankruptcy. A Statutory Demand failed to prompt any response, other that another refusal to pay, so a bankruptcy petition was issued.
The bankruptcy hearing was some three months away when the Debtor was served with notice of the Hearing. He waited until 24 hours before the bankruptcy hearing to instruct his solicitor to contact us to make payment. We recovered our client’s total debt, together with all bankruptcy costs, on the afternoon before the bankruptcy hearing was due to take place.
Our client is a firm of accountants. They had provided professional services to a limited Company. They were instructed by a Director of the Company to provide detailed tax advice in relation to a number of companies within the group.
The Client undertook the work, which in fact proved to be a lot more involved than first anticipated, thus costing far more than the original fee estimate. The Client kept the company informed of every increase in fees, notwithstanding which, at the time of invoicing, the Company refused to pay, referring to the original quotation.
We issued legal proceedings for the client, which were Defended, the Defendant maintaining that they were only prepared to pay the original fee estimate, contained in the letter of engagement.
We were able to demonstrate to the Court that our client had in fact kept the Defendant Company fully informed of all changes to the amount originally quoted. As the Defendant had requested further work, our client provided them with regular updates and sought their agreement to further fees being incurred.
We obtained a Judgment against the Company for the total amount of the debt, together with costs and interest.
Our client is major high street bank, and the team of staff with whom Jayne Lees works deal with the factoring and invoice discounting part of the business. It became apparent from taking on the client that their legal knowledge was varied and in some cases very limited, so Jayne offered training, at no charge.
This has developed over the years and we have a training programme in place so from when a new member joins the team they have an introduction to legal process; an overview of the things we can do, and those we can’t. This is continued through their progression and the training includes spending time at our offices so they can see how we work.
Jayne found that sometimes a client’s lack of understanding can make them frustrated; when they are not aware of the court timetables for example. Having spent time with the client developing their understanding, and her understanding of their requirements and processes, this has both cemented the relationship with them and helped us to exceed their expectations of a provider of legal services.
The training programme is still developing and evolving, to encompass the changes in their internal processes, and changes to the CPR, and continue to work with the client as this method assists in developing their staff, and demonstrates our loyalty to them.