Mr. Tan (name altered for confidentiality) is a paper supplier; his customer an established newspaper/printing company.
The debt didn't "feel dangerous" to Mr. Tan at first because this customer had been around for decades as an established entity with a good industry reputation.
Unfortunately, with print media being a sunset industry, the payment delays began years ago; and got progressively worse.
Excuse after excuse came: "Next month, market slow, restructuring, this relationship is important to us, we are waiting for payment from our customers."
Small token payments came in from time to time that were enough to create some hope but not enough to meaningfully reduce the debt exposure.
Like many reasonable, benevolent businessmen; my client did not want to damage the relationship. So he waited and waited.
Many meetings, calls, coffee sessions and promises later; 4 years had passed and the debt had ballooned in excess of 3 million ringgit before Mr. Tan appointed my firm.
We pushed the debtor hard with threats of litigation. They hired a "fighting cock" lawyer who was damn rude and difficult to deal with. His unnecessarily combative facade was most likely a cover to buy time for his Client.
Nevertheless, after a massive amount of persistence, we finally secured a F2F meeting to potentially settle the debt.
The settlement meeting was quite a spectacle; with the opposing lawyer unhinged-ly barking at us with the most lansi of faces whilst his client was apologetic in contrast and kept saying "it's ok bro, we really do owe them money".
After an hour of childishness, the meeting concluded on quite a promising note, with the debtor needing a month to "reconcile accounts" before coming back with a settlement offer.
The barky opposing lawyer repeated the words "this meeting is strictly without prejudice!" to me and my associate about 10,000 times until our ears bled.
A month later, we sent a scheduled follow up email to the opposing lawyer, reminding him to send over his client's promised settlement offer.
3 weeks of silence followed by a non-committal reply: "We are still awaiting instructions from our Client."
After another 2 weeks, my Client had run out of patience and told us to prepare to file suit.
However, by then the most unfortunate reality had already became clear: rumors swirling that the debtor was already winding down their business and disposing of assets and cash.
The general consensus among their creditors was that there was effectively nothing meaningful left to pursue.
Unfortunately... this debt recovery story may not end with a dramatic surprise courtroom victory.
We are in the midst of preparing to file the Writ + Statement of Claim. But with over RM3 million of paper already being supplied; we expect that there will likely be no paper value left to recover.
The lesson repeatedly rings true that business relationships don't usually break because lawyers get involved; rather they break the moment one side repeatedly chooses not to pay.
In countless cases we've seen over the years: no creditor has ever regretted taking action early. The most expensive legal decision is waiting until the debt becomes an unsalvageable history lesson.
Rudi Cheu (rudi@rulecolaw.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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