Client owes you BIG - Lives in another country - What can you do?

DiegoBAQ

OK I have this "client", (I will keep his anonymity for now) .
Been working for the guy and his projects for several years now.
On my latest commissions, payments started to get delayed or incomplete but the requirement for modeling and animation was still high. We worked on monthly payments like a salary. We used to make a balance of the delivered work and from 1 to 5 the client paid. 
But at some point he started to have work unpaid accumulated month to month. 
I kept working because of the relationship we had, all these years. But he started to accumulate debt. At one point I asked him to pay out because it was too much for me and he got crazy mad and shut me off. 
I don't know what happened with his game, apparently he has financial problems and the project was cancelled or something. But I never agreed to a post compensation or royalties. I was providing a professional service. But he kept trying to push the idea of the "we were in this together" kind of deal. 
I tried sending him a Debt collector company but this got him even madder. And he menaced to sue  me alleging a release of confident client data. Something ridiculous because I only shared with the collection company a couple of emails only to prove his relationship with me and his acknowledge of debt. 
I'm out of tools here. I honestly don't know what else to do.
Have you gone through the same thing?
how can we protect ourselves from this kind of client behavior? 

Thanks to the community, I enjoy everyday the talent spread around and I learn a lot from you guys.
Cheers!

sprunghunt

If they're in another country they're going to have problems suing you. Usually you have to be a resident of the country you want to be in court for. And if they've got no money how are they going to afford a lawyer? But really it should be a case of no-money means no work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3RJhoqgK8

Biomag

Typically (might not be the case in your country, but it should be most of the times) if nothing else is stated in the contract the jurisdiction is based on where the service has been provided, not where the money is coming from - so it would be the freelancers location.

Now the thing that you can do is sue him in your country, get a judgement (if you win) and with that hire an attorney in his country that goes through the legal excution procedure in your clients country to get access to the money he own you. The costs of the execution would also have to be paid back by him.

The problem with legal procedures is that they take time and you pile on costs that you might not get back if he has nothing of value to pay them. Take a look at what amount he owns you and maybe have a talk with a lawyer just to be sure how certain your case is and what costs you would have to expect for the trail. Maybe the risk isn't worth the effort. Sometimes contacting the client through a lawyer can get already things done, since people often get intimidated by legal warnings or simply in prospect of additional costs for holding out.

The best protection for this kind of situations is to have smaller payments for smaller milestones. The more often you get your money the lesser the chance to have a big sum that doesn't get paid, but you can't avoid it totaly.

DiegoBAQ

Thanks!! @Biomag  good advice's. I had bad experiences like this, before this one, and I went through the legal path making the corresponding legal claim and all, but it was more the time lost, the headache, the legal cost, than the actual win at the end of the day. 
Great video talk @sprunghunt  !! We all need to learn how to deal with these issues I guess. Much more common than I thought. 

Well I guess I'll go home with a hand shake and a palm in the shoulder. 

See ya!!