Business Debt Settlement Counsel in Georgia: What Senate Bill 90 Changed About the Evaluation

No published ranking can identify the right advocate for a Georgia business debt dispute, because the statute that governs the evaluation compensates no one it protects.

Signed in May 2023, Senate Bill 90 added commercial financing disclosure duties to the Fair Business Practices Act for transactions consummated on or after the first day of 2024, and the enrolled text of the bill compels providers to disclose the funding amount, the disbursed figure where fees reduced it, the total payable, the dollar cost and the payment terms before consummation.

An owner who signed within the covered range, which excludes transactions above five hundred thousand dollars, may hold disclosure rights the funder never mentioned in the closing stack, since the duties attach before signature and demand accuracy the originator had little incentive to volunteer.

Georgia Disclosure Duties Under Senate Bill 90

Only one disclosure is owed per transaction, with no fresh disclosure required upon modification or forbearance of a consummated agreement, and the itemized contents run from the total funds provided through the total amount to be paid, with the dollar cost stated as the difference between the two and the payment manner, frequency and amount recited alongside any prepayment costs the agreement creates.

Whether a given merchant advance sits inside the commercial financing definition is the threshold question for counsel, since the enrolled text leaves characterization to be tested against the actual agreement, and no article can supply a categorical answer from a marketing label, though the exclusions the section recites leave some transactions outside any plausible reading.

The disclosure package, when complete, runs long and reads dense, and counsel translates its figures into settlement posture while the funder treats the same pages as a closed file.

The Broker Provisions

Brokers may not collect advance fees for arranging commercial financing, beyond payment for actual application services by check or money order to an independent party, and the section further bars false representations and deceptive acts in the offer of brokerage services.

An owner who paid an upfront fee to a broker holds a question worth examining with counsel, since the prohibition is stated in unconditional terms while the file often describes the payment as something else.

Penalties Without a Private Claim

The Attorney General may receive complaints, pursue voluntary compliance, and commence proceedings that test whether either effort produced anything, and violations carry civil penalties of five hundred dollars per violation within a twenty thousand dollar cap for a single course of documentation, rising to one thousand dollars per violation within a fifty thousand dollar cap after written notice of a prior violation.

The penalty punishes the paperwork, and the balance remains what the documents say it is.

The section creates no private right of action, which is the entire shape of the Georgia scheme: the statute protects the merchant without handing the merchant a claim, and counsel wields the disclosure at settlement while no provision of the section pays any portion of the balance.

That protection without compensation should redirect the search for counsel rather than end it, since the value of the disclosure lies in what it proves about cost rather than in what it recovers.

Settlement Documentation and Releases

After signature, after the first missed debit, the questions that matter concern documents rather than promises, and counsel should gather and test every exhibit before the owner authorizes payment, since the assembled file decides more than any advertisement the owner once trusted.

In January 2022, federal enforcers permanently barred two merchant cash advance providers and an owner from the industry over seizures from small businesses, and the FTC account of that action remains the reference point for what collection conduct looks like when no one reviews the paperwork, since New York courts test MCA agreements by substance, weighing reconciliation practice, finite term and bankruptcy recourse under the analysis the LG Funding decision from the Second Department supplies even where its authority does not govern.

The servicer asserting the balance, which often acquired the account months after origination and then demanded the full face amount without addressing the discount embedded in the chain of assignments, must still prove standing to collect what it claims.

Five confirmations belong in the settlement file:

• The file names each party and each covered agreement, with each retiring guarantor identified by name.
• The release states its scope in its own text rather than incorporating summaries from correspondence.
• The agreement introduces no fresh confession and addresses any existing affidavit through counsel review.
• The funder commits to termination filings for security interests and delivers copies of each filing.
• The payment terms name amounts, dates and cure rights, with tax reporting allocated before acceptance.

Canceled debt can produce taxable income with conditional exceptions for bankruptcy and insolvency, so the owner does well to ask how the settlement allocates tax reporting before accepting a discount, because the IRS treatment of canceled debt turns on facts the owner must assemble rather than assumptions the spreadsheet supplies.

Steps the owner takes, or does not take, in the weeks after default determine whether these confirmations become instruments, and the leisurely pace of public enforcement means the private file carries the weight.

Choosing Counsel and Settlement Help in Georgia

Behind most published rankings stands a compensation arrangement the reader never sees, and the FTC guidance on endorsements and material connections requires disclosure of relationships that affect the credibility of a recommendation.

Counsel selection decides the outcome more than any single clause, and a Georgia owner needs an advocate who reads the disclosure before discussing price, since the stack decided much of the outcome before counsel entered the file.

Delancey Street, a debt relief company rather than a law firm, offers a free confidential initial review for MCA distress and coordinates legal matters with independently licensed counsel, and a Georgia owner can request that assessment through Delancey Street as the start of a diagnosis.

Independent counsel should ensure no communication reaches the funder without review, even casually, and the merchant should ensure every promise enters the written file.

Resist the urge to answer the collector, and simply state that counsel will respond to the claims asserted against the business.

Most owners wait past the point where options narrow, and the delay is extremely common and entirely understandable, though the obligations created in the meantime outlast every advertisement that produced the debt.