Questions & Answers
Recovery of outstanding dues against a supermarket
We were selling our food items regularly to one big supermarket having 3 to 4 branches in Dubai for the last 10 years and were paying our bills within 90 days.
Suddenly, for the last 1.5 year, they started delaying payment and rather not paying since 1 year for goods worth more than AED 100,000/-.
We stopped selling goods to them for 4 months as not paid for previous bills. We follow up every week but they're not paying.
How can we take legal action against them or complain to the government authorities like the Economic Department or others?
Please guide us.
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Thank you for reaching out to me on this.
As I understand, the issue you are facing is non-payment towards invoices and this is a commercial recovery issue. The government authorities cannot play any role nor have any say in this.
You will need to institute a civil case before the court against the supermarket for recovering your amount under the invoices. I hope you have all the invoices, delivery receipts and purchase orders (optional).
What you need to have is a document certifying you have delivered the goods, they accepted the goods and you have sent the invoice to them.
The court will look into the documents and award a favourable judgement in your favour. You will also be eligible to claim legal interest on the claim between 9-12% in the court.
You can get in touch with me for further clarification and assistance. I may be able to assist you to recover these dues for you.
You can contact me on email or phone.
Regards,
Hari Wadhwana
Dear Questioner,
The best way to recover your money is through the civil court (Filing a civil case against the supermarket).
We believe that you must be having invoice, purchase order and delivery receipt.
You can schedule a meeting with us and bring all the above documents in order to take it forward at the earliest.
Kindly contact us on the phone for a detailed discussion or write to us at our email for further assistance.
Dear Questioner,
Do you have a contract signed with them? If yes, we need to review it first.
I would suggest you hire a lawyer to serve them first with a legal notice (it's the cheapest option).
In case they did not pay the outstanding amount after sending the legal notice, we can open a court case against them.
Even if you go ahead with a court case, the first step is to serve the other party with a legal notice. So my suggestion is to start with the legal notice and see their reaction.
On the other hand, do you have any security cheques from them? If yes, you can deposit them. If the cheques are bounced, we can start a criminal complaint against them in the meantime.
Please send me a copy of the contract signed between both of you, on my email address.
I will review it and come back with feedback.
Best regards,
Raluca Gatina
