How to enforce that judgment: Think like a bad debtor
Companies often focus on securing a judgment but don’t put enough thought into how to actually recover the money or anticipate the unwelcome hurdles along the road to enforcement and recovery. When the losing side simply refuses to pay or hides its assets offshore, these “bad debtors” cause lost value on a massive scale. Unpaid judgment debt represents millions of dollars in unrealized cash value globally. Indeed, in 2020, a majority of in-house lawyers said their companies had unenforced awards valued at $20 million or more.1
Having already spent money on lengthy, often hotly contested litigation to reach the judgment or award, creditors often may understandably find further pursuing the enforcement too expensive. A legal finance partner with a dedicated team of specialists in corporate intelligence and asset recovery can help companies and law firms surmount the factual and legal obstacles to recovering favorable legal judgments and turn “legal paper” into cash. A financier like Burford can also fund that enforcement and recovery work. To understand how these professionals trace and recover assets, companies and law firms will find it advantageous to think like a “bad debtor”. Below are the most common bad debtor payment evasion tactics we see.