Breach of Contract

[kennymc]

I'm confused. Who is this new agency?

I suggest you start dunning your old agency for the outstanding payments. Don't forget to add the admin charge and interest. www.payontime.co.uk You have, it seems, made efforts to mitigate the agencies loss. A basic point of law is that the agency cannot withhold payment if the work has been done. If they want damages, they must sue for it.

Many thanks for the advice, I have e-mailed them asking whether they are going to pay me or not, if the say no, or take longer than 5 days, I'll see my solicitor.

[/QUOTE]Get some proper legal advice about the reference. It's entirely possible that the agency is behaving improperly. Ask your new agency to work with you on this.[/QUOTE]

My new end client require a full official three years employment history, any missing dates result in non-complience with there security policy, which results in me not being allowed back on site. Therefore, the agency I'm working through are thrying to gain the relevant info from my last agency.

I found out that my previous agency are part of the REC who state that consultancies have an obligation to "provide confirmation that you completed a specific contract successfully along with the dates you worked". The request for reference has now been re-submitted and I should have that info within the next few days.

[NotAllThere]

I'm confused. Who is this new agency?

I suggest you start dunning your old agency for the outstanding payments. Don't forget to add the admin charge and interest. www.payontime.co.uk You have, it seems, made efforts to mitigate the agencies loss. A basic point of law is that the agency cannot withhold payment if the work has been done. If they want damages, they must sue for it.

Get some proper legal advice about the reference. It's entirely possible that the agency is behaving improperly. Ask your new agency to work with you on this.

[kennymc]

Update

Well,

I gave my old agency and end client three weeks notice for which I have not been paid. Also, my old agency are refusing to give my new agency a reference (i'm SC Cleared and this reference is required for me to continue to work on site).

My advice to all the new starters at contracting is, never take on a contract that does not have a notice period. It may seem obvious but I have seen a few (and I mean a few) contracts with no notice period in them (in the three cases, the end client were defence sector companies).

[PSK]

I am sorry to hear about your circumstances.

You've probably tried already and you mentioned the client aren't happy but your agency problems might be addressed if you can persuade the client to terminate you. You might find a more sympathetic ear with the client that with an agent who has a direct financial interest in you staying there.

It will depend on your contract and the circumstances but I'm not sure a sick note would necessarily help your companies contractual position.

Good luck.

[SueEllen]

Thanks to everyone for thier advice, much appreciated.

I gave the agency and the client intailly 2 weeks notice which i managed to extend by a further week.

I do have the right to sub but the two people I put in for the role weren't suitable (they also need SC Clearence in place).

What other agencies are on the client's PSL?

I'm not the sort of person to feign illness but if I did would this not stop me from starting another contract?

If the client is pissed of with you then if you ever need a reference they will give you a bad one. However most contracts don't need references and most companies refuse to supply them for contractors.

Could I close the Limited company and remove the assets from the business account?

No need to go that far. Agencies threaten people because most are useless at doing the work they are given.

Hence you are better of working with the client and the other agencies on their PSL to find a replacement for you. I bet if you write the advert then a replacement can be found in a reasonable amount of time for another agency.

[Old Greg]

Thanks to everyone for thier advice, much appreciated.

I gave the agency and the client intailly 2 weeks notice which i managed to extend by a further week.

I do have the right to sub but the two people I put in for the role weren't suitable (they also need SC Clearence in place).

I'm not the sort of person to feign illness but if I did would this not stop me from starting another contract?

Could I close the Limited company and remove the assets from the business account?

Are you allowed to take holiday?
Are you contractually obliged to work on site? If not work from home every day until they terminate the contract.
Start behaving unprofessionally or performing badly.

There must be a way out of it.

[kennymc]

Thanks to everyone for thier advice, much appreciated.

I gave the agency and the client intailly 2 weeks notice which i managed to extend by a further week.

I do have the right to sub but the two people I put in for the role weren't suitable (they also need SC Clearence in place).

I'm not the sort of person to feign illness but if I did would this not stop me from starting another contract?

Could I close the Limited company and remove the assets from the business account?

[Wanderer]

Has anyone been, or heard of a Contractor being, sued by an agency for terminating the contract early?

No, but I've heard of a lot of agencies threatening legal action to try and bully a contractor out of the money that they legally owe them.

You want to come to a quick and amicable (written) agreement that the agency will pay you what they owe for days worked, drop the threat of legal action and in return you will do your professional best to do a full and proper handover. Time is of the essence here, the longer it goes on the weaker your negotiating position is. You want an agreement immediately, they will want to string it out.

The agency have informed me that as this is a breach of contract, they will be seeking loss of earnings which may be a substantial amount.

I'm sure they will think that it would be a substantial amount. Co-incidentally, it will come up to exactly the amount of money that they currently owe you...

If it turns nasty then for your opening shot, ask them how much margin they were making on the contract and what their running expenses are. They would need to reveal this so you can assess how much their supposed "losses" from the breach of contract would be. Note that the losses would be the profit they would expect to make on their margin, not the earnings and certainly not the total value of the remaining contract. You should also remember that if the agency place someone with the client to replace you then they haven't lost any earnings so there are no damages.

If they are not willing to do that then make it clear to them that what you are NOT going to burn your bridges by walking off the job with no handover and making damned sure that every agency in town will know that the client is recruiting a replacement for you so they will have bugger all chance of getting their own person in there as a replacement for you. No, because that would be wrong and you don't do business that way.

The other option is to tell the agency that you will invoke your Right of Substitution and put a subbie in there. If the agency won't co-operate with you then point out to them that you will engage other agencies to recruit a subbie for you and although it's perfectly legitimate as per the RoS in the contract, this may not be what the agency want you to do....

Of course this could all become very stressful leading to you going to your doctor as a gibbering wreak and getting a sicknote for stress for a couple of months...

[JamJarST]

WPLS. Granted it will be a bit of pain to sort out but a substitute would solve your agency issue provided you are allowed to do it.

It would also be a mitigating factor if they did sue, you could show your willingness to minimise the loss to the agent.

[JamJarST]

Its 3 months. I am sure whatever the family reasons you could stay and finish the contract out.

How can you be sure of that???

[psychocandy]

Has anyone been, or heard of a Contractor being, sued by an agency for terminating the contract early?

I entered a 6 month contract with every intent of seeing it through including any rolling contract offered. unfortunately, due to personal family reasons I am leaving three months into it. This has been met with disappointment to say the least by the end client and the agency. The upshot of it is, is the contract had no notice period allowed unless due to illness (yes i am aware of how naive this is now). The agency have informed me that as this is a breach of contract, they will be seeking loss of earnings which may be a substantial amount.

Go back for one day, then go to your doctor and get signed off for stress....

[eek]

I know this is not answering the question but...

Does your contract have a right of substitution in it?

If so, offer to send them someone else and give someone who maybe on the bench a chance.

WPLS. Granted it will be a bit of pain to sort out but a substitute would solve your agency issue provided you are allowed to do it.

[Sockpuppet]

Has anyone been, or heard of a Contractor being, sued by an agency for terminating the contract early?

I entered a 6 month contract with every intent of seeing it through including any rolling contract offered. unfortunately, due to personal family reasons I am leaving three months into it. This has been met with disappointment to say the least by the end client and the agency. The upshot of it is, is the contract had no notice period allowed unless due to illness (yes i am aware of how naive this is now). The agency have informed me that as this is a breach of contract, they will be seeking loss of earnings which may be a substantial amount.

Its 3 months. I am sure whatever the family reasons you could stay and finish the contract out.

[Pondlife]

I know this is not answering the question but...

Does your contract have a right of substitution in it?

If so, offer to send them someone else and give someone who maybe on the bench a chance.

[kennymc]

Has anyone been, or heard of a Contractor being, sued by an agency for terminating the contract early?

I entered a 6 month contract with every intent of seeing it through including any rolling contract offered. unfortunately, due to personal family reasons I am leaving three months into it. This has been met with disappointment to say the least by the end client and the agency. The upshot of it is, is the contract had no notice period allowed unless due to illness (yes i am aware of how naive this is now). The agency have informed me that as this is a breach of contract, they will be seeking loss of earnings which may be a substantial amount.