Type of refusal
Non-payment: what it is and what routes exist
Money due under a loan, subscription agreement or promissory note has not arrived, and the counterparty offers excuses instead of a transfer. That is non-payment. Legally it is a breach of a payment obligation, not automatically fraud. The label matters because it decides which remedies are open and which are not.
What this is legally
Non-payment is failure to perform a payment obligation that arose under a contract, whether that contract is a loan agreement, a subscription agreement, a promissory note or a side letter tied to a private placement. Contract law treats the debtor's silence, a missed date or a partial payment differently, and the difference changes which remedy applies first. A breach of contract claim is not the same as an allegation of fraud, and mixing the two in a demand letter can weaken both. Which forum is competent to hear a payment claim of this kind depends on the contract's forum clause, the parties' domicile and the applicable procedural rule; this page does not name one court, chamber or authority as competent for O1 cases, because that layer of the analysis is confirmed case by case. Refusal to perform is one category among the types tracked on the refusals hub, and each carries a different legal starting point.
Where it occurs
Non-payment appears across instrument types: unpaid interest or principal on a private loan, a missed coupon on a structured note, an unfunded capital call, or a subscription that was accepted but never paid out. It surfaces whether the investment was set up through formal structuring work or through a bare handshake agreement. Due diligence performed under investor compliance checks reduces exposure but does not prevent a counterparty from defaulting later. Non-payment is distinct from a refusal built on dilution of a stake, where the money was never withheld outright but the investor's position was reduced instead.
Available routes
A written demand that states the amount, the due date and the contractual basis is the first formal step, and it carries more legal weight than a reminder email. If the counterparty still does not pay, the choice is between negotiating a settlement or filing a formal claim, and that choice depends on the contract's dispute clause, if one exists. Where the contract sends disputes to arbitration, that clause controls and displaces the general courts. Where it does not, the claim proceeds through the ordinary civil process of the relevant jurisdiction. A judgment or award is not the end of the route: it still has to be enforced against identifiable assets, and enforcement is a separate step with its own conditions. Work on payment and redemption defaults covers this sequence in more detail, and a walk-through of what a repayment demand should contain is set out in demanding money back when private debt payments stop. Whether an interim measure to preserve assets is available before judgment is established from the case file, not assumed in advance.
What to gather
Collect the underlying agreement and any side letters, proof of the funds transferred at the outset, and every payment confirmation or lack of one. Add the full written correspondence in which the counterparty acknowledged the debt, promised a date or offered a partial payment, since an acknowledgment can affect how a claim is framed later. A corporate registry extract for the counterparty entity, current and not from the time of signing, shows who and what remains behind the obligation today. Screenshots alone are not sufficient; keep original files, headers and timestamps where they exist.
Next step
The next step is a paid initial assessment of the documents above, not a promise to recover the money. There is no success fee and no arrangement that ties payment to outcome; the firm's registration can be checked in the public registry, and the method for doing that is set out in how to verify a law firm. Background on this refusal type is collected on the O1 insight page.