Debt recovery and enforcement
The rules on debt recovery changed materially on 16 February 2024, when the revised OHADA Uniform Act on Simplified Recovery Procedures and Enforcement Measures came into force. The deadlines are shorter and the procedure is faster than most creditors, and some advisors, still assume.
What the 2023 revision changed
- The president of the court must now rule on an application for an injunction to pay within three days
- The deadline for the debtor to oppose the order is reduced from fifteen days to ten
- The deadline to appeal is reduced from thirty days to fifteen
- A decision rejecting an application must now state its reasons
- A new action is available for annulment of the notice
- Conciliation is entrusted to a designated judge, who has fifteen days to convene the parties and two months to rule
- Electronic service of documents is now permitted
- Immunity from enforcement is narrowed to public-law entities
The shorter deadlines cut both ways. A creditor who moves promptly obtains an enforceable order faster than before. A debtor served with an order has ten days, not fifteen, and a debtor who assumes the old deadline still applies loses the right to be heard.
Our work includes
- Demand letters and assessment of the debtor's assets and solvency
- Applications for an injunction to pay, and defense of opposition proceedings
- Attachment of receivables and of bank accounts, attachment of movable assets, and attachment of shares and securities
- Prejudgment attachment and its conversion into enforcement
- Enforcement against real property
- Objections to enforcement, and motions to release attachments taken against clients
- Recovery of debts owed by parties in other OHADA States
Contact
Speak with an attorney
Enonchong Chambers meets with clients at its offices at 305 rue Alfred Saker in Akwa, Douala. Correspondence in English or French is answered in the language it was written in.