Company in Sweden owes us money- Help?

johnswife

My husband did some work for a company in Sweden involving software, £6k, and despite chasing and promises still no payment.

Our Accountant has advised us of a Solicitors that will ring/send letter for a small fee but wondering if it would do any good for overseas customers.

Is there any other route to take, and has anybody else been in this position.

Wywth

johnswife wrote: »

My husband did some work for a company in Sweden involving software, £6k, and despite chasing and promises still no payment.

Our Accountant has advised us of a Solicitors that will ring/send letter for a small fee but wondering if it would do any good for overseas customers.

Is there any other route to take, and has anybody else been in this position.

What was the terms of the contract? In particular which country's law applied to that contract?

You will need a legal advice from someone that specialises in the law of the land of the country the contract was said to apply in.

If it's Sweden, are you prepared to take this to a Swedish Court if necessary? If it's England, what do you think the chances of the non-paying company coming to an English court are? And even if you do win, what do you think the chances of getting any money back is?

You might be best putting this one down to experience.

Brassedoff

I sued a cyber squatter in Sweden a couple of years ago and then a former client who engaged me to set up a UK arm of his Swedish business.

What law governed the contract? If its the UK law you are OK. As the person who owes you money is in a country that is covered under the EEA, the basis of the contract is important.

If in the UK, the go through the court process here, then engage a solicitor (As below) to enforce it through the Swedish Courts. This will be expensive

If under Swedish Law, you can sue in the Swedish Court. You cannot do it yourself, you have to go through "Allman Domstol" or Advocate. This will be expensive

You amount is above their current fast track which is £4,600. The big issue you have is that everything has to be translated into Swedish even if the Judge, Defendant and Applicant speak perfect English. This is because you can all get to court and the other side pretends not to know English. The Court provides a translator at a fixed cost of £60 an hour.

You can file all the papers from the UK after completing them with their translations into Swedish. Because you are not domiciled in Sweden you have to lodge £450 with the court in case you lose (that covers the other sides costs).

When you get the court date, you have to be in person, or represented by the Advocate.

It is a long and drawn out process. It will cost you around £3,500 just to get to the court (I have assumed your hotel, flight costs etc). The only costs you get back on top of the award is For an application in a civil case, the applicant must pay a filing fee to the court. At present the filing fee is SEK 450 (£45).
In cases where out of court settlement is permitted and the value of the claim obviously does not exceed half of the base amount of £4,600, (So half the base amount £2,202), compensation for litigation costs may not include other expenses, except for:

1. Costs arising from legal advice, which is restricted to one hour at a time for each matter dealt with; the fee charged corresponds to the amount payable for one hour of legal advice under the Legal Aid Act
2. The application fee
3. Travel and subsistence costs incurred by the party or the party's legal representative in order to attend a court hearing or, if the party is not required to attend in person, the travel and subsistence costs incurred by the legal representative
4. Expenses incurred by witnesses
5. Translation costs.

The better alternative if you can do it at the right cost is to look for a Swedish firm that has is represented in the UK (better than a UK Solicitor who outsources the work to another in Sweden).:money:

I know of Hamilton Advokatbyrå. They are known as Hamilton & Co. in the UK

There details are : Hamilton & Co. St. James House 13, Kensington Square, London, W8 5HD, Tel: 020 7795 4775, https://www.hamilton-adv.se

Good luck

johnswife

Thanks for the replies, sounds like it will be expensive and time consuming.
The annoying thing is my husband always, always gets 30% up front to pay for flights & and anything else to be bought for larger price jobs and for smaller ones the whole amount before he will go but for some reason this was the first job that he didnt do it! Sods law!
He can remotely switch off his software or he says plant a bomb? so it will stop working. Then they may contact him to put right the "problem" in which case they will have to pay outstanding invoice and up front for future visit. He doesn't really want to do that unless he has no other option.

Savvy_Sue

What's in the contract? If it says what will happen in the event of non-payment, follow those steps. If it doesn't, he needs to change the contract for the next time!

Acc72

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

What's in the contract? If it says what will happen in the event of non-payment, follow those steps. If it doesn't, he needs to change the contract for the next time!

I agree with the above (which is fine for future work) but I would go one step further in this case.

I assume that you have got an audit trail of letters chasing this outstanding amount ?

If not, firstly start the 3 letter process - the final letter being a 7 day letter stating that if you do not receive the payment in full cleared funds within 7 working days that you will remove the software without further notice.

Just do a quick google search for example wording - send all letters by both mail (signed for delivery) and e-mail to prevent any delays.

johnswife

Thanks the only problem is that if he threatens to turn off the software they can turn off the engine. His software is for testing beds for engines.
At the moment ,after talking an engineer there into leaving the engine on, he has remote access to it. Possibly if they know what he intends to do they can just switch everything off.
(thats if i understand it correctly)

johnswife

The have just emailed to "say" that they are paying today! so will probably have to wait a few days to see if the payment comes through. I have asked for a copy of the bank transaction.
so will wait and see what happens.
Thanks for all your suggestions and i will definitely tell my husband to put in the contract about penalty for non payment.

Wywth

johnswife wrote: »

Thanks the only problem is that if he threatens to turn off the software they can turn off the engine. His software is for testing beds for engines.
At the moment ,after talking an engineer there into leaving the engine on, he has remote access to it. Possibly if they know what he intends to do they can just switch everything off.
(thats if i understand it correctly)

What does it matter to your husband if the company stops the engine test? :huh:

But I think prematurely ending the engine test will affect the supplier, especially over a relatively small £6k

Brassedoff

johnswife wrote: »

Thanks the only problem is that if he threatens to turn off the software they can turn off the engine. His software is for testing beds for engines.
At the moment ,after talking an engineer there into leaving the engine on, he has remote access to it. Possibly if they know what he intends to do they can just switch everything off.
(thats if i understand it correctly)

I think you've missed that off your original post. Is there a relationship between the two parties that means you get something by using their engine test bed and they get something by using the software?

If that is the case, does that mean they appear to believe you are in a contra type business deal?

It appears that as they have not paid and you gather data from the test bed to assist your business but don't pay for it, is that correct?

Your Husband might need to think about going back to the drawing board and sort out some type of contract. If the relationship is one sided at present, see if he can negotiate payment of the £6,000 of part of. That way the relationship is able to carry on.

Just a quick word of warning, in Sweden you will need to have the equivalent of it being signed off by their equivalent of a Public Notary known as a apostille. Their stamp is normally £60.

If you have an agreement stamped by a apostille, its easier to get a result in court

johnswife

Brassedoff wrote: »

I think you've missed that off your original post. Is there a relationship between the two parties that means you get something by using their engine test bed and they get something by using the software?

If that is the case, does that mean they appear to believe you are in a contra type business deal?

It appears that as they have not paid and you gather data from the test bed to assist your business but don't pay for it, is that correct?

Your Husband might need to think about going back to the drawing board and sort out some type of contract. If the relationship is one sided at present, see if he can negotiate payment of the £6,000 of part of. That way the relationship is able to carry on.

Just a quick word of warning, in Sweden you will need to have the equivalent of it being signed off by their equivalent of a Public Notary known as a apostille. Their stamp is normally £60.

If you have an agreement stamped by a apostille, its easier to get a result in court

My husband writes software for testing beds for engines. He does not get any data back to help our business. Sorry if i am not explaining myself very well. He sells to companies in hong kong, India & S. Korea. they buy his software for their engine test beds. Sometimes they have a problem that they have created and sometimes there maybe a glitch with the software. As long as the test bed is running he can remotely access the software and sort out any problem. If it can't be fixed then he would have to arrange a trip to sort out the problem.