The European Commission is planning to propose legislation to tackle the late payment of commercial bills

Date: 17/07/1997

within the EU. It says national governments should introduce minimum requirements, including the statutory right of creditors to be paid interest on outstanding invoices, warning: “Increasingly long payment periods have serious consequences for all European firms, whose cash-flow, profitability and competitiveness are undermined.” The Commission set the pace last month by announcing that its own departments would in future have to pay interest on overdue bills.