«Serious, well-educated and high-profile business partners tear each other apart in court over money,» this prestigious lawyer remarked to me in a chilling tone. Indeed, the organisational charts of corporate senior management are in turmoil during times of loss. And reaching a point of insolvency is always traumatic. In most cases, it involves the breakdown of internal relationships, the sacking of senior and executive management, backstabbing amongst shareholders and, of course, staff cuts accompanied by the collapse of the employer–employee relationship, if indeed such a relationship ever existed.
According to my friend at this leading Barcelona law firm, they have never before witnessed such a collapse in business activity and such a surge in insolvency cases as we are seeing now. So much so that they have had to adapt their internal structure and HR arrangements to cope with this avalanche of business failures, the end of which is nowhere in sight.
Speaking to another friend, this time a tax adviser, he told me that he has many (and when I say many, I mean exactly that) clients with businesses that are waiting for the end of the holiday season so they won’t have to reopen in September. This is set to become widespread practice. In other words, the unemployment figures after the summer are not only going to skyrocket due to the traditional end of the season in the service sector (restaurants, hotels, etc.), but also because of the thousands of workers who will find themselves out of work when they return from their paid holidays in convenient payment terms all-inclusive, right up to dismissal.
Will these workers’ household finances be able to cope with the loss or reduction of one of their incomes when their unemployment benefit comes to an end? For the most part, no. Their levels of debt are often so crippling that any dip in their earnings would shatter the fragile balance of their household finances.
In the face of this massive increase in insolvency cases pre- and, above all post-When it comes to holidays, the classic film springs to mind Timo del Nazareno:
It involves setting up a commercial enterprise, preferably a limited liability company, which begins to make purchases from various suppliers, initially paying for the first purchases in cash until it has gained their trust. From that point onwards, larger purchases are made, using bills of exchange and promissory notes as a form of payment, drawn on dormant bank accounts, whilst the goods, before the payment due date, are either resold at half price or simply diverted, resulting in the bills being dishonoured when presented for collection.
The term ‘scam’ for the Nazarene It stems from the «queue» of debtors caused by this type of fraud, who, just like penitents, turn to the banks in an attempt to cash the promissory notes and bills of exchange issued by the alleged fraudsters.
But of course, there are significant differences: a business owner who will no longer be opening their doors in September is not doing so out of a desire to defraud, but because of an accounting error; and it is not a premeditated act but a regrettable measure resulting from the crisis and/or negligence in business management. What I am not so sure about is whether, before pulling down the shutters, business owners have not done everything possible to minimise the residual assets they will have to face in insolvency proceedings. A practice which, on the other hand, seems perfectly understandable to me. Clearly, the trail of aggrieved creditors that both business owners and fraudsters will leave in their wake will be worthy of the name ‘Nazareno’.
In these times of crisis, the line between the Nazarene con artists and the businesspeople who make purchases – some of which they will sell, some of which they won’t, and which they will never be able to pay for – is becoming increasingly blurred. But what is worrying is that, whether in good or bad faith, the Nazarene penitents are set to swell the already long queues of creditors in a dramatic domino effect.