Many businesses are—or soon will be—unable to meet their obligations. Not all businesses in distress are unsuccessful; sometimes, as in the economic circumstances arising from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the governmental directives tailored to address the related public health issues, even successful businesses must confront closures and steep declines in demand that could not have been anticipated, and may find it necessary or desirable to restructure their existing debt obligations.

With the current economic crisis significantly affecting global business, certain procedural remedies can be particularly useful in order to deal with unpaid debts.

The most common of these procedural remedies in Spain is the so-called 'proceso monitorio', which consists of a special payment procedure used for the recovery of specific monetary debts which: