Michigan Supreme Court Holds Forwarding Companies Are Collection Agencies Subject To Licensing Rules

Debt Collection Licensing

On June 13, the Michigan Supreme Court held that forwarding companies are collection agencies under state law and are subject to state licensing requirements. Badeen v. Par, Inc., No. 147150, 2014 WL 2686068 (Mich. Jun. 13, 2014). In this case, a state-licensed debt collection agency and an individual state-licensed collection agency manager filed a putative class action against a group of forwarding companies—companies that contract with creditors to allocate a collection to a collection agent in the appropriate location but  do not contact the debtors themselves—alleging the companies are actually collection agencies and were operating in the state without first obtaining a collection agency license. The court explained that under state law, a collection agency is “a person directly or indirectly engaged in soliciting a claim for collection or collecting or attempting to collect a claim owed or due another or repossessing or attempting to repossess a thing of value owed or due another arising out of an expressed or implied agreement.” The court determined that under the plain meaning of the statute, the phrase “soliciting a claim for collection” means asking a creditor for any unpaid debts that the collection agency may pursue by allocating them to local collection agents, which the forwarding companies did by contracting with creditors. The court rejected the forwarding companies’ argument that they do not satisfy the definition because soliciting a claim for collection refers only to asking the debtor to pay his or her debt, which the forwarding companies did not do. The court determined it need not reach the issue of whether the forwarding companies indirectly collect or attempt to collect debts when they contract with a local collection agency. The court remanded for trial court consideration a separate issue of whether the forwarding companies satisfy a statutory exception to the licensing requirements applicable to collection agencies whose collection activities in the state are limited to interstate communications.