Director liability claims in Austria let a creditor pursue the individual behind a company that stopped paying, but only in defined circumstances – insolvency filed too late, funds withdrawn ahead of the shortfall, or a personal undertaking given at signing. An unpaid invoice against the company alone does not open that door.
The sequence starts away from court. We collect the company's filing history, any insolvency notice, and the paper trail around the point payments stopped, because a director liability claim in Austria stands or falls on what a director knew and did at that moment. Where the underlying claim is documented – contract, delivery, invoice, unanswered demand – director liability claims against the individual sit alongside the ordinary claim against the company, not instead of it.
Once the review is complete, a formal demand is sent to the director directly, naming the conduct alleged: late insolvency filing, preferential payment to another creditor, or a transfer of assets before the shortfall became visible. If the director does not settle, the claim is filed in the competent Austrian court. Austrian civil procedure runs on written pleadings and a limited set of hearings; a claim of this kind is rarely resolved quickly, and a limitation period applies that we check against the facts before advising further.
Austrian director liability turns on documented knowledge, not on the fact that the company failed. Courts look for board minutes, management accounts, and correspondence showing when the balance sheet situation became apparent and what the director did next. A late insolvency filing, a payment made to one creditor while others went unpaid, or a transfer of assets shortly before the shortfall are the fact patterns that carry weight.
The debtor's position matters as much as ours. A director who filed on time, took independent advice, and can show the company's accounts were current has a strong defence even where the company ultimately failed. We test the file against that likely defence before recommending a claim, because a claim that ignores the director's answer wastes the client's time and cost.
Company record checks, insolvency register searches, and corporate intelligence gathering in Austria are legal research from public and licensed sources, not personal scrutiny of the director as an individual. Where a pre-legal collection step is appropriate before litigation, that step is carried out by a registered provider in Austria; SOLUTIO does not carry out collection itself. We check this position against the wider creditor rights in Austria baseline before adding a director claim to the file, because the company claim and the director claim are assessed together, not separately.
Fees for this work are agreed before instruction. Austrian rules do not permit a fee consisting solely of a share of the outcome, so the basis combines a fixed review fee with an agreed litigation fee, set once the file has been assessed.
SOLUTIO assesses the claim, coordinates the file, and instructs admitted lawyers and licensed providers in Austria to file, serve, and appear. The correspondent handles procedure under local rules; we handle the cross-border coordination, the translation of evidence, and the client's exposure where the same debtor group is also the subject of a company-level claim, including cross-border debt recovery in Austria where that claim is still open.
Splitting the work this way keeps each side accountable for what it controls. The correspondent answers for procedure and deadlines inside Austria. We answer for whether the claim was worth bringing in the first place, and for the client's position across every jurisdiction the debtor touches.
Only in defined circumstances – late insolvency filing, a preferential payment ahead of the shortfall, or a personal undertaking given at signing. An unpaid company invoice alone does not create personal liability.
Board minutes, management accounts, the insolvency filing date, and correspondence showing what the director knew and when. Without that paper trail, a claim against the individual is unlikely to succeed.
It runs on written pleadings and a limited set of hearings, and a limitation period applies to the underlying conduct. We check the applicable period against the facts before advising on timing.
An exporter holding an unpaid Austrian invoice is rarely the only creditor watching the same director. Assets that could satisfy a personal claim move once insolvency becomes public, and the creditor who files first is often the one who recovers something. The question is not whether the conduct looks wrong on paper, but whether the file supports a claim before that window closes.