Deferred Court Costs, Net

The Company pursues legal collections using a network of attorneys that specialize in collection matters and through its internal legal channel. The Company generally pursues collections through legal means only when it believes a consumer has sufficient assets to repay their indebtedness but has, to date, been unwilling to pay. In order to pursue legal collections the Company is required to pay certain upfront costs to the applicable courts which are recoverable from the consumer (“Deferred Court Costs”).

The Company capitalizes Deferred Court Costs in its consolidated financial statements and provides a reserve for those costs that it believes will ultimately be uncollectible. The Company determines the reserve based on its analysis of court costs that have been advanced and those that have been recovered. The Company writes off any Deferred Court Cost not recovered within five years of placement. Collections received from debtors are first applied against related court costs with the balance applied to the debtors’ account balance.

Deferred Court Costs for the five-year deferral period consist of the following as of the dates presented (in thousands):



	March 31, 2016			December 31, 2015
Court costs advanced	$	648,723		$	636,922
Court costs recovered	(248,869		)	(242,899		)
Court costs reserve	(324,025		)	(318,784		)
Deferred court costs	$	75,829		$	75,239

A roll forward of the Company’s court cost reserve is as follows (in thousands):



	Court Cost Reserve
	Three Months Ended March 31,
	2016			2015
Balance at beginning of period	$	(318,784	)	$	(279,572	)
Provision for court costs	(18,898		)	(19,179		)
Net down of reserve after 60 months	12,978			7,925
Effect of foreign currency translation	679			443
Balance at end of period	$	(324,025	)	$	(290,383	)