I. Introduction
Haraguchi International Law Office, a law firm with unparalleled expertise and experience of international debts collection, was established in March 2013 by Kaoru Haraguchi with more than 30 years international legal practice experience in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan qualified in Japan, the state of New York and Mongolia.
II. Debts Collection in Japan
1. Our expertise to collect the debts for the foreign creditors in Japan.
As a law firm specialized in the international debts collection in Japan, we can find the best solution to collect the debts from the Japanese debtors under the flamework of the laws of Japan.
We review the contracts under which the debts is accrued, summary of the collection effort by the creditor against the debtor, the reasons for the refusal of the payment by the debtor, consider whether the quality issue is associate with the dispute and review the financial conditions of the debtor extremely carefully.
By reviewing the above materials and contacting the debtor, we could quickly understand the nature of the dispute of each case and form the best strategy of the collection of the debts from specific debtor.
As we could collect less than 5% of the debt if the debtor becomes bankrupt, we urgently recommend the debtor to give up the debts as much as possible and collect the debts as soon as possible.
If the debtor is merely financial difficulty but has valuable assets, we recommend our client to installment repayment plan with the security interest in the valuable property of the debtor to avoid the adverse effect of the bankruptcy of the debtor.
We could often recommend the litigation against the debtors who claims the quality issue of the products delivered by the creditor. This is because the quality issue would be very difficult to sort out between the parties and often judge and expert witness is required.
Without these critical legal issues, we negotiate the debtor through amicable solution. As more than 90% of the debtor of the commercial debts are medium or small companies in Japan, we can share the mentality of the representative director of the debtors, who often issue the guarantee of the loan to the banks as we do. We have developed how to collect the debts from the debtors without they give up their business and file a bankruptcy.
With respect to the consumer case, we found that most of the debtors were shocked to hear the notice from the lawyer and pay the debts immediately as long as the transaction is real and they have money.
2. Our expertise in collection of the debts outside of amicable collection
(1) Litigation and Provisional Disposition
Upon the litigation, we normally file a provisional disposition of the asset of the debtor to freeze the assets during the litigation.
As we can speak fluent in Japanese and other languages, such as Mongolian and Chinese, we have expertise to represent the foreign creditors in the litigation in Japan where all the procedure is strictly held only in Japanese in accordance with the laws of Japan.
(2) Bankruptcy
We have expertise to anticipate and avoid the bankruptcy of the debtors in Japan. We also have expertise to protect the debts and payment of the debts from the bankruptcy trustee of the debtor by using securities created by us or statutory lien in the products delivered by the foreign creditor to the debtor in Japan. Upon the bankruptcy of the debtor, we represent the debts on behalf of the foreign creditor to register the debts with the bankruptcy trustee of the debtor, attend the creditors meeting and vote the sales of the assets of the debtor to maximize the distribution of the assets of the debtor.
(3) In Sum
Our debts collection expertise are based on our experience in legal collection (through litigation and bankruptcy).
Based on our rich experience to represent the foreign creditors in the litigation and bankruptcy, we fully understand the risk of the bankruptcy of the debtor and collection of foreign debts through litigation.
As soon as we understand such a risk in the debts collection in Japan, we could find the way to avoid such risk and recommend our invaluable creditor how to maximize the collection of the debts in Japan.
Although the legal (through litigation or bankruptcy proceeding) debt collection should be complex and take long time, we must request retainer in advance, our amicable debt collection in Japan is based on the no collection no fee basis as the standard fee arrangement of TCM group worldwide.
III. Debt Collection Outside of Japan
As a large capital contributor and active member of TCM Group since 2014, a network of boutique law firms and collection agencies, most of them are top law firm specializing in debt collections and leading collection agencies in respective countries. For example, TCM China has more than 42 offices in all over mainland China and more than 5000 employees are involved in high technology credit risk management and debts collection in China. Through the TCM network, we have a confident to represent Japanese creditors having trouble in debts against the debtors outside of Japan.
Unlike our competitors in Japan who merely collect the debts through referring the case to the foreign law firm, we have been gotten to know each other members of TCM group during annual conference held in deferent countries for more than a week.
As we attend more than half of recent 9 conferences held all over the world, we get to know the owners of the member of TCM group quite well.
As an international debt collection specialist in Japan, we could understand the nature of the issue of the debts very quickly. Once we understand the issue of the debts, we immediately contact the member of the TCM group all over the world, all our long-time friend, to collect the debts outside of Japan as much as possible and as soon as possible.
Our Debt Collection Claims
The number of single claims collected ranges from US$500 to US$10 million. We have collected more than US$30 million so far and have collected debts of US$2 million within one six-month period in Japan. On one occasion we collected US$5 million owed by a Japan subsidiary of a Korean company to a Japan subsidiary of North American creditor.