The SME Chamber organises an informative webinar on the new Skills Pass system
11 April 2024
This morning the Malta Chamber of SMEs organised a webinar for its members in collaboration...
Late Payments
04 April 2010
Abigail Mamo –
Last week the JURI committee voted on the recast of the Late Payment Directive. The vote was particularly relevant, as the JURI committee is responsible for the issue of contractual freedom in payment terms.
In the amendments proposed on the JURI report, several MEPs expressed their readiness to limit the freedom of contract of business to business relations in the field of payment terms. Some proposals went as far as to set a maximum payment term of not more than 30 days.
We are happy to inform you that the JURI committee rejected all of these amendments. Not only did the JURI committee reject aforementioned proposals, the adopted text of compromise 6 literally echoes our message on the importance of trade credit to SMEs.
Also relevant is the acceptance of compromise amendment 3, which deals with our amendment on additional liquidity.
For further information you will find the proposed amendments and the outcome of the vote. The latter document also includes the adopted compromise 6, in which the importance of trade credit to SMEs is emphasized.
The next important step will be the vote in the IMCO committee, scheduled on the 8th of April. After this, the dossier will go to plenary in May.
Although yesterday's vote in JURI is a positive development, the further course of the dossier is unpredictable. In IMCO there are still many MEPs that want to restrict contractual freedom in payment terms.
