Advocacy on statute of limitations terms from ACA International and the Ohio Receivables Management Association continues in 2021 session. Editor’s note: This article is available for members only.
1/4/2021 14:00
In the final hours of the December lame duck session in the Ohio State Legislature, a statute of limitations bill years in the making failed to get a vote.
The bill in question was supported by the industry after two years of negotiations and a series of House and Senate hearings in which ACA International and the Ohio Receivables Management Association (ORMA) advocated on behalf of the accounts receivable management (ARM) industry.
The amended bipartisan bill, H.B. 251, seeks to reduce the statute of limitations on written and oral contracts to six and four years, respectively, and define consumer transactions and assign them a six-year statute of limitations. The bill as originally introduced in 2019, aimed to reduce the statute of limitations on all contracts to three years. Even after two years of negotiations and committee votes, the legislation was amended several times in the final hectic days of the legislative session. These last-minute efforts to amend the legislation saw industry supported language both stripped out of the legislation and re-inserted before time ran out for a final vote.
ACA and ORMA provided testimony during both House and Senate hearings and launched grassroot campaigns resulting in more than 1,000 strategic touches throughout the two-year legislative process. Both organizations look forward to working with legislative leaders on similar legislation in 2021.