Bit of advice, or at least a view from a different perspective, needed… awaiting NLUK – are you sure you’re cut out to be a contractor? –
The premise of my predicament is I have been contracting with company A and company B via agency A. I’m not in the IT industry, so rather my time is billed on a project rather than day rate i.e. payments at project intervals, typically 25% on start, 25% on the middle milestone and 50% on completion.
Everything’s been going well, perhaps too well, for the last 12 months. Here comes the problem; company B has acquired company A mid project and wish to retain my services for Co A’s project – the contract therefore is being reissued and company B want to inflate the rate paid to me for the completion of the project – this isn’t from the niceness of their hearts, but rather because of the added level of complexity from the acquisition and to complete the project to the original deadline.
Brilliant, right? Here comes the snag, I’ve seen the purchase order, in fact I have a copy of it that was sent to Agency A, however the pimp at agency a is stating that there is no need to reissue the contract between my co and the agency (no mention of co a in contract or work schedule, I've checked); only agency contract with Co B is affected, therefore, I presume, they swallow the entire updated project cost; this is a six figure number. Pimp obviously has no idea that I’m more than aware of the rate uplift for project completion. Could this even be construed as fraud on the part of the agency?
I’ve got a meeting with the agency this afternoon – how would you handle this? Going direct with co B is not an option (not due to any handcuffing clauses, they categorically state they will not engage contractors directly). Before today I’ve had a great working relationship with the agency (although it’s a new pimp). My plan is to play dumb, see what the agency say and then mention the discrepancy to Co B in our catch-up this evening, obviously without signing anything. I’m debating raising this immediately, however, as I’m hesitant to do anything that could potentially sour my relationship with Co B.
Over to the learned minds of CUK.
The premise of my predicament is I have been contracting with company A and company B via agency A. I’m not in the IT industry, so rather my time is billed on a project rather than day rate i.e. payments at project intervals, typically 25% on start, 25% on the middle milestone and 50% on completion.
Everything’s been going well, perhaps too well, for the last 12 months. Here comes the problem; company B has acquired company A mid project and wish to retain my services for Co A’s project – the contract therefore is being reissued and company B want to inflate the rate paid to me for the completion of the project – this isn’t from the niceness of their hearts, but rather because of the added level of complexity from the acquisition and to complete the project to the original deadline.
Brilliant, right? Here comes the snag, I’ve seen the purchase order, in fact I have a copy of it that was sent to Agency A, however the pimp at agency a is stating that there is no need to reissue the contract between my co and the agency (no mention of co a in contract or work schedule, I've checked); only agency contract with Co B is affected, therefore, I presume, they swallow the entire updated project cost; this is a six figure number. Pimp obviously has no idea that I’m more than aware of the rate uplift for project completion. Could this even be construed as fraud on the part of the agency?
I’ve got a meeting with the agency this afternoon – how would you handle this? Going direct with co B is not an option (not due to any handcuffing clauses, they categorically state they will not engage contractors directly). Before today I’ve had a great working relationship with the agency (although it’s a new pimp). My plan is to play dumb, see what the agency say and then mention the discrepancy to Co B in our catch-up this evening, obviously without signing anything. I’m debating raising this immediately, however, as I’m hesitant to do anything that could potentially sour my relationship with Co B.
Over to the learned minds of CUK.
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