Pending debt-collection cases decreased for the first time in three years, with 3.3% fewer cases awaiting resolution when compared to the last three months of 2012, according to a report by the Ministry of Justice entity DGPJ.
Translated into numbers, the data shows that there was a drop of 41,334 accumulated debt recovery cases, Also, during the first three months of this year, more than 112,000 enforcement proceedings were concluded, which also contributed to these positive results.
For the first time since 2008, the rate of solved cases – which measures the total amount of completed lawsuits and the amount of commenced actions – surpassed the 100% mark and registered an unforeseen percentage of 158%.
This was justified by the DGPJ, which stressed the large amount of completed cases (112,397) and the lower number of new lawsuits (71,063).
However, despite these positive results, the duration of the cases did not follow this example. The lawsuits that saw their end during the first three months of the year took, on average, an extra 10 months when compared to the same period in 2007. The time that it took between the start of the procedure and its closure was 49 months.
