The book shows that self-help in commercial law is a fast inexpensive and efficient
alternative to court enforcement. Self-help remedies and private debt collection are largely
but not exclusively features of common law jurisdictions since remnants of private enforcement
can still be found in contract law in civilian systems. The book argues that - despite their
usefulness - self-help and private debt collection entail significant risks especially for
consumer debtors. This means that private enforcement needs to be accompanied by the
introduction of tailor-made consumer-debtor protection regulation. Specific attention is given
to factoring which functions in many instances as a form of pseudo-private debt collection and
which has been exploited to bypass sector-specific consumer protection regulations.
