Troutman Pepper's Creditor’s Rights Toolkit is a series that provides practical insights to help creditors confront the challenges of commercial bankruptcy.

Sometimes a vendor only becomes aware of a customer’s financial woes when the customer files for bankruptcy. At that point, the automatic stay will foreclose many options that the vendor might otherwise have to recover its unpaid goods. Other times, a diligent vendor learns of a customer’s financial distress and sometimes even the customer’s plans to file for bankruptcy before bankruptcy occurs.

This article focuses on strategies to recover unpaid goods from a customer, both before and once a bankruptcy has been filed.