The President of the Association, Ayman Al-Oloan, said in his speech during the opening of the seminar that the Enforcement Law represents a fundamental pillar in the justice system and the business environment, due to its direct impact on protecting rights, settling financial obligations, and enhancing confidence in the rule of law, and its reflection on the stability of commercial and investment transactions, and the ability of business owners to manage their financial obligations and risks and maintain the continuity of their companies and access to financing.
He added: "With the passage of a year since the full application of the law, the importance of benefiting from the practical experience and identifying the challenges that arose from the application, especially with regard to the amendments of not imprisoning the debtor, and working to develop practical and effective alternatives that ensure the collection of dues while maintaining the guarantees of debtors and the stability of commercial transactions, including enhancing the efficiency of enforcement procedures, disclosure of funds and assets, and organizing payment plans, in cooperation with the private sector and the relevant authorities, to achieve a balance between protecting rights and the continuity of economic activity"
He said: "From the perspective of the private sector, achieving a balance between the rights of creditors and debtors is essential to ensure the recovery of rights, maintain the continuity of viable establishments, and reduce the effects of insolvency on investment, employment, and economic activity. Efficient, clear, and speedy enforcement procedures also contribute to enhancing confidence in commercial transactions and reducing financial risks"
Al-Oloan called for a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the law's application after a year, with the participation of the private sector and relevant parties, and to benefit from the results of the application in developing and simplifying procedures and enhancing electronic solutions, to improve the efficiency of enforcement and reduce delays, while achieving a balance between the speed of recovering rights and the continuity of establishments.
He stressed the importance of continuing dialogue between various parties and the private sector to reach practical recommendations that contribute to addressing the challenges of the application, enhance confidence in the justice system, and support the business environment, investment, and stability and growth of the national economy.
The first session, moderated by Rami Al-Sahib, a member of the Association's Board of Directors, and titled "The Enforcement Law and the Economic Impact", discussed the economic impact of the law's application, its implications for the business and investment environment, including its impact on settling financial obligations, recovering rights, and enhancing confidence in the legal and economic environment.
It also discussed the extent to which the law contributes to achieving a balance between the rights of creditors and debtors, reducing financial distress, and its impact on the continuity of companies and their ability to conduct business and access financing.
The Executive President of the Jordanian Strategies Forum, Nisreen Barakat, pointed out during the session that the results of the opinion poll, conducted by the Forum at the end of 2025 and including more than 1,700 companies from various sectors, showed a contraction in commercial credit and a decline in reliance on deferred sales and difficulty in collecting debts after months of applying the Enforcement Law, according to the opinions of the respondents.
In this context, Barakat stressed the importance of reviewing detailed and accurate indicators to accurately assess the impact, such as the number of enforcement requests, the percentage of collected amounts to the total amounts ruled, the average duration of enforcement, the number of executed seizure decisions, and others.
She also explained that the indicators available at the Central Bank of Jordan showed a decrease in the value of checks returned for financial reasons from 1.10 billion dinars in 2024 to 724 million dinars in 2025, reaching 437 million dinars in the first eight months of 2026, a 42% decrease from two years ago. In terms of the number, the percentage of "checks returned to the presenter" decreased slightly during the first eight months from 2.3% in 2024 to 2.2% in 2025 and 2% in 2026.
Regarding the average value, Barakat noted a decrease in the average value of the returned check from 7,411 dinars in 2024 to 5,368 dinars in 2025, reaching 5,472 dinars during the first eight months of 2026, indicating that the decrease in checks returned for financial reasons does not necessarily reflect an improvement in debtors' commitment to payment, but rather a change in the behavior of creditors themselves, and a decrease in their reliance on deferred checks as a short-term credit tool, especially in high-value transactions, which is consistent with the results of the Forum's opinion poll.
Barakat stressed the need to address these challenges and enhance financial discipline through practical and comprehensive legislative alternatives that include immediate electronic linking between enforcement departments, official entities, and banks to execute seizure decisions quickly and efficiently to ensure the recovery of rights, the development of a comprehensive credit platform linked to returned check data to enhance credit discipline and increase the cost of default without restricting freedom, in addition to expediting the issuance of the discounting law that allows the supplier to sell their receivables to obtain liquidity immediately, which helps to restore part of the financing function that commercial credit used to perform.
She called for the development of an integrated insolvency path for individuals and small enterprises, which allows for restructuring, settlement, and debt rescheduling under judicial supervision, providing an organized and precise framework for dealing with real insolvency cases, protecting insolvent debtors and committed establishments from unnecessary additional burdens, and enhancing creditor opportunities to recover part of their dues and providing necessary protection for those who are actually insolvent.
She also noted the importance of activating the register of guarantees on movable assets and raising awareness of its use, allowing small enterprises to benefit from their movable assets as collateral to obtain the necessary financing, while avoiding excessive reliance on tangible guarantees as a general solution, and providing a fast and low-cost execution path for small claims.
For his part, the former President of the Chambers of Industry of Jordan and Amman, Fathi Al-Jaghbir, explained that the importance of the law increases for the industrial sector in particular, due to the nature of the production cycle and the reliance of establishments on deferred sales and commercial credit in their dealings with suppliers and customers, in addition to their continuous obligations towards employees, banks, suppliers, and various entities, indicating that any amendment to enforcement and collection mechanisms directly or indirectly affects the decisions of establishments in sales, financing, expansion, and investment.
He said that the Enforcement Law cannot be viewed solely as a procedural or legal law, as it has a direct economic impact on confidence in transactions, commercial credit, and liquidity, and the continuity of business.
Al-Jaghbir added: "We look at the amendments related to imprisoning the debtor from the perspective of the need to achieve a real balance between protecting the insolvent debtor and ensuring the creditor's right to collect their money, stressing that imprisonment in itself is not a goal, nor does it necessarily solve the problem of insolvency, especially when the debtor is actually unable to pay; because preventing them from working and economic activity may reduce their ability to fulfill their obligations.
He continued: "However, in turn, the restriction or exclusion of imprisonment in some cases must be accompanied by effective and rapid civil and financial enforcement alternatives, so as not to weaken the creditor's ability to collect their rights or reduce confidence in commercial transactions"
Al-Jaghbir called for distinguishing between the debtor who is actually insolvent as a result of financial or economic circumstances, and the debtor who is able to pay but delays or avoids fulfilling their obligations; protection of the insolvent should not become a means for the delinquent or ill-intentioned to benefit.
He emphasized that the industrial sector relies heavily on commercial credit and deferred sales, so confidence in payment and collection tools is a fundamental element in the continuity of the production cycle, calling for the development of effective and rapid civil and financial enforcement alternatives that ensure the creditor's ability to collect their rights, especially in light of the changes related to imprisoning the debtor, enhancing the ability to verify financial solvency and access to credit information, and developing credit databases to help establishments assess customer risks before granting credit.
Al-Jaghbir also called for more effective tools to deal with cases of procrastination or bad faith, while maintaining the necessary protection for the actually insolvent debtor, studying the actual economic impact of the amendments periodically, and measuring their impact on collection, commercial credit, deferred sales, liquidity, and the continuity of establishments.
For his part, the President of the Bar Association, Yahya Abu Aboud, said that "the effects of the amendment not to imprison the debtor with contractual obligations and to remove the penal protection from the crime of a check that has actually passed more than a year because the defense orders that prevented imprisonment continued since the Corona pandemic until 2023"
He added: "The imprisonment in the contractual obligations of the debtor who refused to pay without being insolvent was a guarantee for dealing between individuals and by ending its effect, there is a need to look for a new credit that has costs that no one can obtain, and thus small and medium-sized projects, sound projects and major companies will be affected."
In the second session, chaired by the Deputy President of the Association, Osama Emsih, titled "The Execution Law and the National Dimension," Dr. Maher Al-Mahrouq, President of the Banks Association, explained that the banks have absorbed the new legal environment within their credit policies, and have become giving greater importance to the customer's actual ability to repay, the quality of cash flows, the credit record, the ratio of liabilities to income, the available guarantees and their enforceability.
He confirmed that imprisonment was not part of the guarantees on which the credit decision in banks is based, as the decision is based primarily on the borrower's ability to meet his obligations and a comprehensive assessment of his risks. However, the decline of some enforcement tools or the slowness of collection procedures increases the importance of prevention before granting financing, through careful verification of existing obligations, conducting payment capacity tests, and monitoring early indicators of distress.
Al-Mahrouq explained that the countries that succeeded in reducing the imprisonment of the debtor were not content with its legislative abolition, but created an alternative system that includes: electronic linking between related parties, quick and organized seizure of money and assets, judicial settlement and mediation, the creation of a civil insolvency framework for individuals, the seizure of part of income with the protection of the minimum living standard, and the provision of accurate and updated credit information.
For his part, Dr. Aref Al-Saeideh, Chairman of the Legal Committee in the House of Representatives, said that the Execution Law has many positives and some negatives, pointing out that it solved many problems, as the presence of the debtor outside the prison may help him to re-arrange his situation and repay the debt.
He confirmed the existence of some gaps and that the government is studying them and presenting them in the upcoming ordinary session of the House of Representatives, saying that the committee is in favor of amending some clauses that caused real problems for traders.
For his part, Dr. Musa Shteiwi, President of the Economic and Social Council, pointed to the importance of adopting a comprehensive set of measures to reduce cases of financial distress and address them at their early stages, through the establishment of an early warning and settlement platform, which allows intervention before the exacerbation of distress cases, in addition to providing free legal support and consultations for the distressed, which helps them to understand their rights and obligations and reach appropriate solutions for settlement.
Shteiwi emphasized the importance of implementing these measures in a gradual manner and in stages, taking into account the nature of the cases, the size of the obligations and the ability to repay, and ensuring the effectiveness and sustainability of the measures.
He also proposed the establishment of a government fund to reschedule the debts of the distressed, especially small debtors, so that the fund contributes to restructuring and rescheduling financial obligations under easy terms, with subsidized interest and for periods of up to ten years, which provides a real opportunity for the distressed to return to financial regularity and reduces the economic and social effects resulting from the distress.
