EOS Forum 19

Steering options and influencing factors for creditors to shape a debt enforcement proceeding with concrete added value: the topic at EOS Forum 19.

What does the debt enforcement officer experience every day? How does the debt enforcement office support creditors? What increases the prospects of success? And which topics currently occupy the Conference of Swiss Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Officers?

The experienced city bailiff and debt enforcement officer Roland Isler did not disappoint the expectations of the many guests at EOS Forum 19. Very lively, knowledgeably and with the wealth of experience from 38 years in debt enforcement, he reported on his everyday work. He described impressively how debt enforcement officers maneuver in the clinch between creditors’ expectations, the possibilities and impossibilities of defaulting payers, and the legal provisions, and try to fulfill their task as successfully as possible.

While debt enforcement or bankruptcy is hardly stigmatized by society any more, so that the threat of it has become practically ineffective, and attachment of assets has also lost importance, provisional protective measures such as sequestrations and retentions of objects bring more success. The guests learned from vivid examples what contribution a creditor can make to the enforcement of their claim.

Mr. Isler did not conceal that data protection legislation increasingly complicates the work of the debt enforcement office – both being tasks of great interest to the public. As a board member of the Association of Swiss Debt Enforcement Officers, he showed which current political and legislative issues the association is engaged in.

Daniel Bucklar, Head of Legal Services at EOS, traced in his talk the history of Switzerland’s Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Act. The Swiss electorate approved the law in 1889 in a national referendum, and it is the oldest valid law in Switzerland. And it is unique: no other country has a comparable statutory regulation of debts. Bucklar explicitly thanked the debt enforcement offices for their not-easy work around debt enforcement requests and requests for continuation. He also addressed the options creditors have to take part, with a focus on the right of complaint, whose use and effect he made clear with vivid examples.

For the panel discussion, the moderator Nina Havel brought Melanie Blattert, Head of Receivables Purchasing at EOS Schweiz, into the discussion round in addition to the two speakers. The participants on the panel spoke on a colorful array of questions.

Can a creditor improve financial success by selling the claim to its collection partner even before debt enforcement? Melanie Blattert explained the difference between receivables purchasing and classic fiduciary collection and showed which considerations on the creditor side are decisive for the decision.

Nina Havel probed Roland Isler on compassion for defaulting payers. With almost forty years of professional experience, Isler parried the question elegantly; he knows who he is dealing with and their tricks, and has learned when ‘temporarily turning a blind eye’ can be valuable for the repayment of debts and in which cases it will achieve nothing.