Bounced Cheque

A bounced cheque is a cheque returned unpaid by the drawee bank, typically for insufficient funds, a closed account, a mismatched signature, or a formal defect. Since the 2022 amendment to the Commercial Transactions Law, the issuance of a cheque without sufficient funds is no longer a criminal offence in most scenarios — banks are required to make partial payment up to the available balance, and the beneficiary can enforce the unpaid balance directly as an executory instrument through the Execution Court without first obtaining a judgment. Criminal liability remains for a limited set of bad-faith acts, including knowingly drawing on a closed account, forging or altering a cheque, or instructing the bank not to honour it without lawful cause. The reform significantly shortened the path to recovery.