Late Friday afternoon, Borders issued a statement casting further doubt on a story that appeared first on Debtwire.com about delaying payments to some small publishers. Borders said the assertion that it has extended the time it takes to pay its small publisher vendors by 40% was inaccurate. “In fact,” Borders said, the retailer “has continued to pay its vendors in a timely manner, has not lengthened its days to pay, and has not been contacted by a group of publishers as alleged.” It further noted that it has not been contacted by any firms “allegedly retained to represent a small group of publishers.” Friday, PW Daily ran a statement from the firm, Lowenstein Sandler, which said the statement that a group of small publishers had hired the firm was incorrect.

“Overall, Borders Group continues to focus on running our business, including recently announced digital book partnerships with Kobo and Spring Design that position the company to be a high quality content provider of eBooks. We also continue to focus on reducing expenses and improving working capital to drive improved cash flow and debt reduction as we address the clear priority to drive profitable sales,” the retailer’s statement concluded.