Press Release: Avoiding bankruptcy by tackling late payments

Insolvencies lead to the loss of 450,000 jobs in the EU and outstanding annual debts of €23.6 billion. 57% of businesses in Europe claim to have problems with liquidity due to late payments, an increase of 10% since last year.

Every day across Europe, dozens of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) go bankrupt as their invoice are not paid. To end this damaging culture of late payment in Europe, European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani has launched in Rome an information campaign across all 27 EU Member States and Croatia, to encourage speedy incorporation of the Late Payment Directive into national law, even before the absolute deadline on 16th March 2013.

Directive 2011/7/EU on combating late payment in commercial transactions is the EU’s tool to combat overdue payments. The Campaign puts particular importance on ensuring that SMEs know the new rights conferred by the directive and how to exercise these rights.

European Commission: Memo/12/742: Let's stop business closures caused by late payments http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/742&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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