São Paulo, Q3 2024. A British engineering firm is owed £840,000 by a Brazilian infrastructure company. The contract was solid. The work was delivered. The payment schedule was clear — until it wasn't.
The Brazilian client cited "cash flow restructuring" and proposed a revised timeline. Then missed that timeline. Then stopped returning calls. The engineering firm's London solicitor sent a stern letter referencing the Hague Convention. The Brazilian company's response, translated from the Portuguese, could be summarised as: "We acknowledge receipt of your letter."
This is what international debt recovery actually looks like. Not the brochure version where a "global network" sends an email. The real version, where legal systems collide, languages obscure intent, and the debtor has home-field advantage in every sense that matters.
Why international collection is a different discipline
Domestic debt recovery follows predictable rails. You know the courts, the timescales, the enforcement mechanisms. Cross-border collection has none of that certainty. The debtor sits behind a different legal system, often one specifically designed to protect domestic entities from foreign creditors. Your English-language contract may be enforceable in theory. In practice, enforcement requires navigating local procedural law, which is where theory goes to retire.
In Brazil, the recuperação judicial process — loosely equivalent to Chapter 11 — can freeze foreign creditor claims for years. In the UAE, enforcement depends on whether the debtor operates in a free zone (common law) or the mainland (civil law). In Turkey, a favourable court judgment can take 18 months to obtain and another 12 to enforce. These aren't abstractions. They're the terrain.
What changes the outcome
The British engineering firm's case turned on something no law firm could provide from London: a relationship. Our São Paulo director — who spent fifteen years in Brazilian corporate banking before joining our team — knew the debtor's legal counsel professionally. Not from a conference. From shared deal history. That relationship created a channel for direct negotiation that bypassed the performative posturing of formal correspondence.
Within that channel, a different conversation happened. The debtor's actual situation emerged: they had the capacity to pay, but were managing a liquidity sequence across multiple creditors. They were paying the creditors who posed the most immediate legal threat. Our team made Intercol that creditor.
We filed for an ação monitória — a fast-track payment order available under Brazilian civil procedure that most foreign creditors don't know exists, partly because most foreign lawyers don't practise Brazilian procedural law. The filing itself accelerated the negotiation. The debtor's counsel proposed a structured settlement: 60% within 30 days, the remainder in two equal instalments. Our client agreed. Total recovered: £840,000 plus contractual interest. Timeline: 87 days.
The pattern beneath the pattern
Every international collection we handle follows a variation of this sequence: the creditor has exhausted what's available to them from their own jurisdiction. They've sent letters, possibly engaged a local lawyer, possibly even obtained a judgment that turns out to be unenforceable where the debtor's assets actually sit. What they haven't done — because they can't — is operate inside the debtor's jurisdiction with native-level legal fluency, language capability, and the kind of relationships that take a decade to build and five minutes to deploy.
That's not a service you can automate. It's not a "global network" of referral partners who've never met. It's people — specific people, in specific cities, with specific histories in those markets — doing work that only they can do.
The question worth asking
If you're holding an international receivable past 120 days, the relevant question isn't whether to escalate. It's how much the receivable will be worth by the time you do. Statutes of limitation vary by jurisdiction: six years in the UK, five in Germany, three in many Middle Eastern jurisdictions, and as little as one year for certain commercial claims in Japan.
The clock doesn't pause while you deliberate. Neither does the debtor.
Submit your case for assessment. Our teams operate in 85+ jurisdictions, and the consultation costs less than another month of waiting. Brief us now.
