When a company starts receiving serial claims over registration in credit default registers, the usual reaction is one of two: admit everything "so as not to pile up costs", or litigate everything "on principle". Both are expensive. With awards in indicative ranges of 3,000 to 10,000 euros plus costs and an indicative average of 4,500 euros per case, the difference between defending well and defending blind is multiplied by every claim in the series.
This service does one thing: it treats the series as a portfolio, not as isolated lawsuits. Each claim is classified by its real prospects of success, defended firmly where the claimant has no case, and closed early — and cheaply — where they do.
Who it is for
- CEOs, CFOs and heads of risk or debt recovery at finance companies that have already received the first claims in a series.
- Servicers sued over their own entries or those inherited with assigned portfolios.
- Telecoms and utilities, the usual target of mass claims firms.
- Companies that finance instalment sales whose old files are now surfacing as claims.
If you have not been sued yet but suspect your practice is vulnerable, start with the Exposure Test: correcting is cheaper than defending.
What it includes, exactly
- Triage of the claims portfolio: classification of each case by the defect alleged, the evidence available and its prospects of success, with an individual recommendation (defend, settle, admit).
- Detection of unfounded claims: claims with no standing, claims where the debt was certain, due and payable and was correctly reported, or claims where the claimant cannot prove the erasure request.
- Block defence strategy: a common line of argument and evidence for the whole series, so that each defence reinforces the next before the same courts.
- Containment of costs: an early decision case by case, so as not to pile up costs orders in the lawsuits that are not worth litigating.
- Conduct of the case in the defences, hearings and appeals of the matters that are defended.
What problem it solves
1. If the debt is certain, due, payable and beyond doubt, the entry is defensible
Serial claims firms file in bulk and rely on you not telling one case from another. But the courts draw the line at a precise point: what the data accuracy principle excludes is debt that is uncertain, in dispute or contested. Where your file evidences a debt that is certain, due and payable, reported in accordance with the requirements, the claim can and should be fought.
The case law takes the view that failure to meet these requirements amounts to a breach of the personal data accuracy principle enshrined in Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679. [translation]
That same decision maps out the playing field: the data reported to a credit information system must be genuine, accurate, truthful and permanently up to date, and debts that are not certain, due, payable and beyond doubt may not be reported. Read the other way round, that is your best defence: if your debt meets the test, the complaint falls away. The triage identifies the files in which you can sustain that evidence and those in which you cannot.
2. An erasure request the claimant cannot prove does not bind you
Many serial claims are built on a supposed erasure request (Article 17 GDPR) that was "ignored". But the burden of establishing that the request was sent and received falls on the data subject, not on your company. Without that evidence, the complaint of having ignored it falls apart.
The burden of establishing that the access request supposedly made was sent and received falls on the claimant... circumstances that are essential before the right can be regarded as having been exercised. [translation]
The reverse also counts, and we build it into the strategy: where the request is established, the controller must reply expressly and deal with the erasure without undue delay and, in any event, within one month. In those files, litigating to judgment is usually the expensive option; the block defence spots it in time and contains the costs.
Deliverables
- Map of the claims portfolio: classification of each case with a recommendation (defend / settle / admit) and estimated financial exposure in indicative ranges.
- Block defence strategy: a common line of argument and evidence, with the evidence to be gathered for each file.
- Defences and conduct of the case in the matters that are defended.
- Closing report for each batch: outcomes, costs avoided and corrections recommended at source to cut off the series.
Indicative timescale
Initial triage of the portfolio in 10 working days from receipt of the claims and the files, as an indication. From there, the defence follows the procedural timetable of each case, with a strategy review at every new batch of claims.
Defending the series solves the present; it does not cut off the cause. If the origin lies in your standard contract or in your registration process, Contract Hardening stops the series from repeating itself with new files.
Are you receiving serial claims?
Send us the approximate number of claims received and where they come from, and we will send you a proposal for triage and block defence.
Request a Block Defence proposalNo claims yet? Measure your exposure with the Test · See the 5 mistakes that are leading to adverse judgments