Ask HN: German company didn't pay me for two months

I worked for a German company that didn't pay me for 5 months, during that period payment was always late, then it didn't come for two months then I was let go, which was good for me since I was going to quit anyways and if they fire me I get a three weeks severance, but after they let me go, they emailed that they will pay me then cut contact for the last month with 0 news. I'm not based in Germany or Europe so suing is a bit hard, which they know and are ignoring me probably for that reason. I am now trying to reachout to lawyers and see if I can start a case against them, but I'm wondering if I should contact their investors to put pressure on them, or share my story publicly on their social media.

I honesty don't know what the best course of action is in this case since I never had this happen to me in my whole career. Any advice?

I’m not in Germany but as it’s in the EU I would contact a German employment lawyer.

Write a short summary of the events, detailing what they should have paid you, when they should pay it, what they did pay you, when they paid it, and how much they still owe you. Also include a copy of your contract.

Use bullet points and make it as easy to read as possible. Imagine you’re asking a stack overflow question.

Probably the lawyer will give you a free initial consultation where they tell you the next free steps.

Maybe the lawyer will charge you a few hundred euros to send a letter before action.

If the company doesn’t pay, and is still solvent then the lawyer might recommend taking them to court as the company will have to pay the lawyers fees if you win the case.

It’s likely your case is open and shut and it’ll never go anywhere near court.

I assume if you're based outside of EU you were paid as a contractor? In that case you can start a legal dunning process (gerichtliches Mahnverfahren), that's actually surprisingly easy to start, most municipalities provide it as an online service. The court will ask you to provide some proof of the unpaid services you provided and send a court order to the company, most companies crater after that and pay. Once you have an enforcement order (Vollstreckungstitel) you can start the debt enforcement process (Zwangsvollstreckung), an official court agent will seek to retrieve the debt from the company then, going as far as seizing office assets and even cash in the founders pockets (it can be quite humiliating). As I said, it's a surprisingly easy process to get started and it's really intimidating to most companies as any legal action might lead to being publicly documented and tainting the credit score of the company, it can even lead to court ordered bankruptcy filing.

If you were actually employed you need to take the company to the labour court (Lohnklage), given how difficult it is to employ someone who's residing outside of the EU I imagine this to be even scarier for the company, so they should be very willing to settle their debt with you.

Again, the key point is to plausibly threaten and possibly enact these measures. This is not legal advice.

Note that if you are based outside Germany and you want to start a "Mahnverfahren" then you'll need to start it at the district court of Berlin-Wedding

https://www.mahngerichte.de/mahngerichte/wedding/

not at any other municipality's court.

Only do this yourself if you speak and read German well enough to handle the correspondence yourself. Otherwise you really need a German lawyer to act for you.

It is sometimes possible to agree payment of lawyer's fees according to the value in dispute instead of being billed for time spent. This can keep costs down.

Name and shame ;)