The European Commission proposes a new Europe-wide preservation order to ease the recovery of cross-border debts for both citizens and businesses. Around one million small businesses face problems with cross-border debts and up to €600 million a year in debt is unnecessarily written off because businesses find it too daunting to pursue expensive, confusing lawsuits in foreign countries.

The Commission has proposed a Regulation would establish a new European Account Preservation Order that would allow creditors to preserve the amount owed in a debtor's bank account. This order would prevent debtors from removing or dissipating their assets during the time it takes to obtain and enforce a judgment on the merits. This will raise the prospects of successfully recovering cross-border debt and increasing confidence in trading within the EU’s single market.

This proposal is part of the Commission's “justice for growth” agenda, which seeks to harness the potential of the EU's common area of justice for trade and growth. The new European order will allow creditors to preserve funds in bank accounts under the same conditions in all Member States of the EU. The Commission is just adding a European procedure that creditors can chose to use to recover claims abroad in other EU countries. The new procedure is an interim protection procedure. The creditor will have to obtain a final judgment on the case in accordance with national law or by using one of the simplified European procedures in order to get the money.

The European Account Preservation Order will only apply to cross-border cases. The instrument will be issued in an ex parte procedure. This means that it would be issued without the debtor knowing about it, thus allowing for a “surprise effect”. Moreover it provides common rules relating to jurisdiction, conditions and procedure for issuing an order; a disclosure order relating to bank accounts; how it should be enforced by national courts and authorities; and remedies for the debtor and other elements of defendant protection.