Statistics on debt judgements in England & Wales released today (May 24) by Registry Trust Ltd show that the total value of county court judgements (CCJs) issued against businesses rose 14.4 percent (£19.6m) from £136.2m to £155.8m in the first quarter of 2011.Registry Trust is the non-profit organisation which operates the Register of Judgements, Orders and Fines for England and Wales on behalf of the Ministry of Justice in the public interest.
Year on year the value of CCJs against businesses has fallen by 11.2 percent or £19.6m from £175.4m to £155.8m
Judgment numbers reflect a similar pattern in that they rose 8.9 percent over the last quarter but fell 7.2 percent year-on-year. Businesses in England and Wales faced 37,794 CCJs in Q1 2011, compared with 34,713 in the previous quarter and 40,711 during the same period of 2010.
This quarter a record 23,832 searches were requested. Anyone can search the registers on-line at www.trustonline.org.uk.
Announcing the statistics Malcolm Hurlston, Registry Trust chairman, said:
“The weather was blamed for the sluggish performance of the economy in the last quarter of 2010 and could be one of the reasons for an increase of judgements against businesses in the first quarter of 2011.