Legal protection: Time to enforce contracts

Legal protection is important to all business operations. The speed with which a contract can be enforced can be critical, especially if an outsourcing relationship goes bad. Listed below is the average number of days to resolve a commercial sale dispute through the court system. Typically two thirds of the time is allocated to filing, the trial, and getting to a judgment. The remaining time is associated with enforcing the judgment.

Russia, Vietnam and the United States are the fastest countries to resolve a commercial dispute with an average of 300 days or fewer. China is also relatively quick at about 400 days. India is the worst with an average of close to 1,500 days.

Data is sourced from the World Bank Doing Business survey. The overall Ease of Doing Business survey covers 10 dimensions which include starting a business, dealing with construction permits, employing workers, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business.