Agent gone bust

[malvolio]

Well, to be more accurate, it's still breathing, just about but is terminal.

No it's not. Trust me...

Client previously "enforced" a part solution - invoices made out to client, submitted to agency who forwarded them on. Agency then received commission, client paid direct.

Fine but that is no longer an option. There is no agency. Invoice the client yourself. Or give away all your potentially lost income to the receivers. Your choice.

The uncertainty is the way forward.

I'm not uncertain about what you should do. Why are you?

[dack]

Really don't understand the problem, do you? !

Read my posts and you'll that I have a complete grip on things. Any money sent to the liquidators for work I've completed has precisely zero change of being passed onto me & fellow contractors.

Forget Pendragon, they are not part of your problem.

TALK TO THE B****Y CLIENT AND SORT AN ALTERNATIVE!

The scenario I was giving was to illustrate that any action ClientCo may have taken if they were dealing with an agency is still open to them when dealing with liquidators.

ClientCo have made it quite clear that they will not withhold any due payments on the basis that the contractors won't be paid - they have no legal standing to do so.

However, I was presenting the idea that ClientCo would have grounds to withhold payment if they felt 10 contractors going out of business would be sufficiently disruptive to their own operations.

[SuperZ]

[QUOTE=perplexed;1016912]

Maxine Fack and Rob Holden have been incredibly evasive, disingenuous and indeed outright fibbed / lied, both to contractors and the Met Office.

Integrity, guilt? nah. They've been blaming the bank for overdraft issues. Not their fault, oh no. Apparently, they haven't paid the landlord for months, haven't paid the cleaners and the place is stripped bare.

QUOTE]

Dude, it was pointed out to the Met Office back in Apr 2008 that they were a bunch of liars but they continued to do business with them, forgiving them, giving them another chance, a chance they shouldn`t of had. In 2008 some contractors already had two years+ of late payments. The Met Office found themselves in a situation where all contractors could have walked off site previously or at that time, yet gave them "another chance", buying into Pendragon lies that were so obvious for all to see. From a contractors point of view, all we want is correct and prompt payment and they couldn`t even do that, the simplest of tasks, a reason why they should have had the boot firmly kicked up their ar**es by both contractors and the Met Office a few years ago instead of contunuing to line their pockets. Hence, the Met Office can also be blamed IMO.

Do you think an agency who puts a company at risk (due to breaching contractors contracts) and who couldn`t even complete the only task the contractors request (prompt payment of invoices) should have been given another chance? No. And because of that, contractors are now out of pocket.

I`ve heard that one contractor was very pro-Pendragon and was well connected with the Met Office, maybe he helped pursuade them to continue doing business with Pendragon. I remeber hearing about some contractors being uncomfortable with this one contractor over the whole Pendragon affair as he seemed to have his tongue a little too far up there.....

[Not So Wise]

Let’s take the scenario that Agency are still trading but have terminated their contract with ClientCo. Agency issue an invoice to ClientCo for work completed to date. They also inform ClientCo that they won’t be passing on payment to the contractors (contracts terminated) as they need the money to pay off debt.

You are still tieing what client owes agency to what agency owes contractor, once again as far as relationship between client/agency goes, what is owed to the contractor is 110% immaterial. The full amount that client has to pay ageny is considered "earning" and this amount that receivers would sue client for if client does not pay, not the 12% they would have kept under normal circumstances

Maybe if i explain it this way, in the agency/client contract there is zero provision that agency has to pay the contractor anything.

The whole "disruptive to their business" thing is also separate issue where they would have to sue the agency, they cannot withhold payment for this (unless contract says so..which it will not), only try to claim it back....good luck in suing something that no longer really exists.

The clients HAVE to pay full amount for any services rendered/supplied that the agency has proof of aka signed and submitted timesheets. If they don't receivers can and will rapidly sue them.

And you can forget about ever getting full amount for these submitted invoices, be lucky to get pennies on the pound a few years down the road, so you just have to consider that money gone

Anything agency/receivers don't have proof of though is a different matter that you should be talking to client direct about

It's for reasons like this that many of us refuse much more than 5 weeks lead time from day work is done to payment (some will only accept even less) and us old timers despair over people accepting things like monthly invoicing with 30 days to pay

Said it once, said it 100 times, Agency's can and do go bust, so protect yourself because when it happens any money owed is good as gone

[perplexed]

No it's not. Trust me...

Well aware of that - was in high pedant mode. It's currently more akin to being a zombie, about to be smited with a +5 Sword of Completing the Obvious attack...

Fine but that is no longer an option. There is no agency. Invoice the client yourself. Or give away all your potentially lost income to the receivers. Your choice.

And again, I've said that was the solution that *was* implemented. Several weeks ago. To try to alleviate some of the problems for contractors, secure services to the end client to minimise risk of us contractors walking. It was partly predicated upon said agency promising end client they had a PLAN to resolve old invoices.

That's clearly not the way forward anymore.

I'm not uncertain about what you should do. Why are you?

We're uncertain mostly because the end client are examining everything with a fine toothcomb to determine everything is ok legally from their end. Hence it's currently up in the air somewhat with regards to negotiating with other agencies, negotiating directly etc. Equally, end client examining all invoices submitted, when they were submitted to determine if anything will be due to liquidators etc.

Obviously we've our own views on the way forward and the best approaches to take, they need to be in step with the end client. Annoy end client unduly, they can seek a replacement through another agency. Disagree with end client approach, ditto.

There's a meeting tomorrow where the end client should have more info for us. The end client was only made aware agency went nipples vertical by being informed by contractors when we received the letter about the cvl meeting. Given that was what, Tuesday, things have been a bit manic for all sides.

[perplexed]

[QUOTE=SuperZ;1017218]

Maxine Fack and Rob Holden have been incredibly evasive, disingenuous and indeed outright fibbed / lied, both to contractors and the Met Office.

Integrity, guilt? nah. They've been blaming the bank for overdraft issues. Not their fault, oh no. Apparently, they haven't paid the landlord for months, haven't paid the cleaners and the place is stripped bare.

QUOTE]

Dude, it was pointed out to the Met Office back in Apr 2008 that they were a bunch of liars but they continued to do business with them, forgiving them, giving them another chance, a chance they shouldn`t of had. In 2008 some contractors already had two years+ of late payments. The Met Office found themselves in a situation where all contractors could have walked off site previously or at that time, yet gave them "another chance", buying into Pendragon lies that were so obvious for all to see. From a contractors point of view, all we want is correct and prompt payment and they couldn`t even do that, the simplest of tasks, a reason why they should have had the boot firmly kicked up their ar**es by both contractors and the Met Office a few years ago instead of contunuing to line their pockets. Hence, the Met Office can also be blamed IMO.

Do you think an agency who puts a company at risk (due to breaching contractors contracts) and who couldn`t even complete the only task the contractors request (prompt payment of invoices) should have been given another chance? No. And because of that, contractors are now out of pocket.

Don't necessarily disagree with you. We were all fed the "we have a PLAN to clear back invoices" speech. I've a good inkling of what than PLAN was, but it's irrelevant now.

Could Met Office have kicked Pendragon to the curb? Potentially. The issue is we've no idea of what was in the contract between Met Office and Pendragon, for the Met office to have kicked Pendragon they would have needed an iron clad, laswuit proof reason, playing devil's advocate.

Either way, what's happened in the past, well, we can't deal with that. Can only deal with the here and now along with the way forward.

[SuperZ]

[QUOTE=perplexed;1017238]

Don't necessarily disagree with you. We were all fed the "we have a PLAN to clear back invoices" speech. I've a good inkling of what than PLAN was, but it's irrelevant now.

Could Met Office have kicked Pendragon to the curb? Potentially. The issue is we've no idea of what was in the contract between Met Office and Pendragon, for the Met office to have kicked Pendragon they would have needed an iron clad, laswuit proof reason, playing devil's advocate.

Either way, what's happened in the past, well, we can't deal with that. Can only deal with the here and now along with the way forward.

Agree, but if the contract between MO and Pendragon didn`t allow the Met Office to ditch the agency if problem arose, that`s a dodgy contract IMO, more fool them for signing such an agreement. Putting the Met Office at risk of 20+ contractors walking out, has to be a breach .

[dack]

Either way, what's happened in the past, well, we can't deal with that. Can only deal with the here and now along with the way forward.

Yeh, I'm happy that I've exhausted all readily accessible options. I've no intention of seeking legal advice (or rather that paying for it). I'm going direct now so I'm happy with that at least, I'll chalk the loss down to nature of the beast.

[RichardCranium]

I've no intention of seeking legal advice (or rather that paying for it).

Why not all chip in and get an IT contract law specialist like egos on the case? It would probably be under £50 each and your LtdCo would pay anyway. That's got to be worth a punt, surely?

[perplexed]

Why not all chip in and get an IT contract law specialist like egos on the case? It would probably be under £50 each and your LtdCo would pay anyway. That's got to be worth a punt, surely?

Indeed.

An ex-colleague now contracting elsewhere was persuing unpaid money via the courts - AFAIK is kept well up to date with the developments which are being passed onto his solicitors.