The limitation period for commercial disputes under the 2005 Commercial Law (Article 319) is two years from the moment a party's lawful rights and interests are infringed. Short rule — but its practical application creates many arguments. The three precedents below illustrate recurring scenarios.
Precedent 09/2016/AL: continuing breach
In a power-supply contract dispute, the Supreme People's Court held that continuing breaches (such as recurring late payments) trigger separate limitation periods for each instance — not a single period running from the first breach. The consequence: if a seller delivers monthly and the buyer is late on each instalment, each late payment has its own clock.
Precedent 22/2018/AL: acknowledgement of obligation interrupts limitation
This precedent confirms that if the obligated party acknowledges the obligation in writing (an email confirming a debt balance, for example), the limitation period restarts from the date of acknowledgement. This is a major procedural advantage for creditors — and the reason many counsel advise not to reply to balance-confirmation emails without first checking exposure.
Precedent 36/2020/AL: silence as acceptance
Concerning a multi-year framework agreement, the precedent established that a rights-holder's prolonged silence in the face of repeated breach notices can amount to "tacit consent" and forfeit the right to sue. This is a cautionary scenario: prolonged silence can have legal consequences on its own.
Limitation is not a fixed deadline — it is a current that can be interrupted, reset, and extended by the parties' conduct.
Practical preservation tactics
Four practical measures: (1) retain every acknowledgement document — emails, debt-reconciliation records, meeting notes; (2) send demand letters via tracked courier with timestamps; (3) ensure any negotiated standstill is written into a formal agreement and references the limitation period explicitly; (4) if limitation is about to expire, file the claim first and continue negotiating after — the act of filing formally interrupts the period under Article 157 of the Civil Code.
Note: the Civil Procedure Code does not permit the court to refuse to accept a case on its own initiative for limitation reasons — that is a defence the defendant must raise. If the defendant does not plead limitation in its response, the defence may be deemed waived.