Issue 384 (Week ending 11/12/2019)

October 2019 had the highest value of judgements against consumers and companies than any other month this year so far. With December looking unlikely to break this record with only EUR2.5m, October's EUR33m will most likely be the busiest month this year for bad debt claims.

The 311 judgments awarded against companies and consumers in October 2019 had a combined value of EUR33m - up 168% on October 2018's total (EUR12.3m).

94.6% of the value of Octobers' bad debt judgment awards (EUR31.3m), were against consumers in 239 separate decisions. EUR21.4m of these awards were in favour of the banking sector/Credit Unions with the Collector General being awarded a further EUR4.3m in 159 separate awards.

Commercial judgments this October had a total value of E1.6m. 25% of this value (EUR418k) was awarded to the Collector General.

10 separate awards were made in favour of Local Authorities (City and County Councils etc.) - these had a combined value of just over EUR131k.

The sharp 168% increase compared to the same period last year can be thanked to a number of high value individual consumer cases which included judgements worth EUR2.05m, EUR1.43m and a particularly noteworthy case worth EUR9.82m. This figure totalled more than the 159 cases awarded to the Collector General (EUR4.3m) and triple Oct 2018's highest individual case worth EUR3m.

Even though October 2019 was considerably higher than the same month last year it does not reflect on the year as a whole. 2019 is looking to have the lowest value judgements against consumers and companies since 2008. So far this year a total of EUR172m bad debts have been awarded compared to 2018's EUR274m, a decrease of 37%.