A freight invoice unpaid after delivery, a demurrage claim the charterer ignores, a buyer who took the cargo and stopped answering: trade and logistics debt turns capital into an unsecured claim overnight. SOLUTIO assesses the counterparty, the contract and the visible assets before any file moves toward a court or a local provider.
Most instructions arrive after a shipment has already moved and payment has not followed it. The debtor is solvent enough to keep trading but has decided, deliberately or by default, that this particular file sits at the bottom of the pile.
The last trigger carries a second risk that creditors often miss. While one claim sits unpaid, other creditors of the same debtor may already be moving. Any related cross-border insolvency claims can change which assets remain reachable by the time a judgment is obtained.
We assess the underlying contract, the carriage documents and the debtor's known assets before recommending a route. Where the claim sits inside a wider cross-border debt recovery matter, we scope the trade or logistics element on its own so the client sees what each stage is expected to buy.
The file opens with the documents, not with a phone call to the debtor. We ask for the contract, the transport documents, the correspondence and any part payment already received. A written assessment follows, stating plainly what the evidence supports and what it does not.
Where a claim needs a documented picture of the debtor before a court filing is worth the cost, a client can order a standalone debtor asset report first and decide from there. The client approves each stage before cost is committed to it; nothing proceeds on an open mandate, and no stage is assumed simply because the last one was paid for.
If the assessment supports action, the next stage is either a formal demand or a filing, depending on the debtor's jurisdiction and the instrument that governs the contract. Each stage carries its own decision point before the next begins.
The common assumption is that a signed contract and a clear invoice make judgment a formality, and that payment follows automatically once judgment is obtained. That assumption ignores where the debtor's assets actually sit and whether any judgment can reach them at all.
A judgment or an arbitral award is a legal conclusion, not cash in hand. Recognition and enforcement in the debtor's own jurisdiction is a separate step entirely.
Many trading nations govern that step through instruments such as the New York Convention 1958 for arbitral awards, or, within the European Union, Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 for court judgments. Where neither instrument applies, a fresh domestic claim may be the only realistic route.
That possibility is assessed before litigation starts, not after a judgment has already been paid for and cannot be enforced. The assessment stage exists precisely to catch this before cost is spent on the wrong route.
| Instrument | Typical use |
|---|---|
| New York Convention 1958 | Recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards across contracting states |
| Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 | Recognition and enforcement of court judgments within the European Union |
| CMR Convention 1956 | Liability and claims for loss or damage in international road carriage |
| CISG 1980 | Rights and obligations of buyer and seller in the underlying sale contract |
The fee basis is agreed in writing before any file opens. It is set out to match the stage the client wants: an assessment, a formal demand, or full proceedings, each priced and confirmed before it starts.
We do not build a fee structure around a share of an outcome that has not been tested. We also do not commit a client to litigation cost inside an assessment fee.
Correspondent and court-stage costs, where they arise, are disclosed by the local provider before they are incurred, not after. A client always knows the next cost before it is spent.
A straightforward demand on well-documented paperwork costs less to assess than a claim resting on disputed cargo condition or a contested choice-of-law clause, and the fee reflects that difference stage by stage.
Refusing a file is part of the assessment, not a failure of it. We turn down instructions where the economics do not work or where the evidence will not support the claim, because pursuing a claim that cannot succeed costs the client more than the invoice ever will.
Trade and logistics debt crosses borders by definition: the seller sits in one country, the buyer or carrier in another, and the contract may name a third country's governing law. Our coverage follows the debtor, not the client, and extends wherever the counterparty holds assets or trades regularly.
Where a dispute turns on shipping documents and the choice of forum rather than the underlying debt, matters connected to international commercial disputes are scoped alongside the trade claim rather than opened as a separate instruction.
For claims rooted in a single ongoing trading relationship rather than a one-off shipment, freight and carriage disputes in Germany show what a documented, contract-heavy jurisdiction looks like in practice.
Filing and enforcement steps are always carried out by admitted lawyers and licensed providers in the jurisdiction concerned. SOLUTIO does not appear before a foreign court and does not itself carry out any pre-legal collection step where that activity is separately regulated.
Sometimes. A formal demand backed by clear documents resolves a real share of these files without a filing. Where the debtor still refuses to pay, the realistic route depends on where its assets sit and which instrument, if any, allows a judgment or award to be recognised there.
A cargo condition dispute shifts the file from a simple payment claim to a contested one, and the surveyor's report, the delivery documents and the correspondence at the time of delivery become decisive. We assess that evidence before recommending whether to press the claim or settle it.
It decides which law applies to the contract, which is not the same question as where a claim can be filed or a judgment enforced. Jurisdiction and enforcement depend on separate rules, and on the instruments that apply between the countries involved.
Every week a logistics debt sits unpaid, the margin it was meant to protect erodes and the paper trail around the cargo grows harder to reconstruct. Other creditors of the same debtor are not waiting, and the assets that could satisfy a judgment do not stay in place indefinitely. The question that matters now is whether this claim still justifies the cost of pursuing it, and an assessment answers that question before anything else is spent.