The year has begun in the best possible way for Bacciardi and Partners. Thanks to the work of Tommaso Mancini and Filomena Zonno, the Firm successfully concluded a very difficult debt collection case in Eritrea, which involved an Italian company operating in the Oil & Gas sector and the Eritrean Ministry of Energy and Mines.
International debt collection is extremely difficult, and in some African Countries almost impossible. Eritrea shows an average credit risk of 91% (source: sace.it) and it ranks 165/180 countries in the corruption perceptions index of Transparency International (source: transparency.org).
The amount owed to the Italian company had been withheld because of the fraudulent actions of some local intermediaries who managed to block the transfer of funds from the National Bank of Eritrea by purporting to be creditors of the Italian company and by making use of false documents.
The payments eventually arrived a few days ago, after the case was heard by the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal of Asmara, thanks to our business-oriented collection strategy and the support of our local corresponding firm.