Protection of rights and legitimate interests of individuals while carrying out activities concerning collection of the overdue debt: changes in legal regulation

Abstract

3 July 2016 Federal Law № 230 “On Protection of Rights and Legitimate Interests of Individuals while Carrying out Activities Concerning Collection of Overdue Debts and on Amendments to the Federal law “On Microfinance Activity and Microfinance Organizations” entered into force (except for certain provisions). The Act introduced new provisions defining the general rules of committing actions aimed at debt collection, the ways of interaction with the debtor, restrictions on the use of certain ways of interaction with the debtor. At the same time, certain problematic issues which had questioned the legality of collection agencies’ activity prior to the adoption of this act have been settled. Thus, the law enforcement authorities did not apply any uniform approach regarding 1) legality of the transfer of rights of claim under loan agreements to the organizations not licensed to conduct banking activities; 2) legality of the transfer of information constituting the banking secrecy; 3) necessity to obtain the debtor’s consent to the assignment of a claim. The article analyzes the answers to these questions subject to the provisions of the case law. The author comes to the conclusion about the necessity of further improvement of legislation in this area. 

Keywords:

debtor, creditor, overdue debt, collection activities, agency agreement, loan agreement, assignment of a claim