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“X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

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Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#81

Post by mlyle »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #77
dragonwriter wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yeah, both the Connecticut case that is the primary reason for this article and the generally similar (but somewhat broader in terms of the kinds of wrongs raised) San Francisco case are not just about the initial violations by Twitter, but Twitter’s alleged failure to pay the arbitration fees required by the arbitrator they have required people to use in place of going to court, which is claimed to have stalle…

Is it possible for someone else to fund the arbitration fees so they can proceed without Twitter’s participation? Similar to how Peter Thiel financed the destruction of Gawker via Bollea v. Gawker. Ideally, you get to a judgement as quickly as possible (by any means necessary) before Twitter’s insolvency, even if someone else has to front whatever Twitter was in the hook for to proceed with arbitration.

Arguably Twitter's refusal to honor the arbitration agreement should just invalidate the agreement and allow these to proceed as a class action.

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#82

Post by threeseed »

lost_tourist wrote: post #66
threeseed wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be criminal consequences for company officeholders. If you are wilfully withholding pay then it should be mandatory jail time. Legislation is underway here in Australia for such an approach after 7/11 et al systemically withheld pay knowing that the financial consequences weren't going to personally affect them.

We don't have debtors prisons. While there are specific cases like this where some jail time would seem just, overall it's a negative for society. It's a civil matter for a reason. I do think such cases should rip the corporate veil to shreds though, and the billionaires would have to pay up.

> overall it's a negative for society

I would disagree.

We shouldn't allow criminal behaviour to be tolerated just because it's white collar.

And the whole point of laws is to protect the vulnerable in our society which definitely includes the innocent employees who are being harmed for doing nothing other than working for Twitter/X.

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#83

Post by IntelMiner »

lost_tourist wrote: post #69
andsoitis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope all these folks get their severance, and hopefully with interest, legal fees and penalties. I wonder what percentage the legal team will take. I doubt this is happening pro bono.

I'm guessing that lawyers are perhaps the one group that Musk pays on time, so he doesn't have to pay up elsewhere.

A certain former president has shown that you don't even need to do that!

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#84

Post by threeseed »

Meta question:

Does anyone know why negative Twitter/X stories tend to drop off the front page so quickly.

It is now ranked 65 despite having a lot of votes in such a short time period.

Just wondering if it's because it is heavily flagged or if the mods are intervening like they have in the past ?

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#85

Post by toomuchtodo »

mlyle wrote: post #81
toomuchtodo wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible for someone else to fund the arbitration fees so they can proceed without Twitter’s participation? Similar to how Peter Thiel financed the destruction of Gawker via Bollea v. Gawker. Ideally, you get to a judgement as quickly as possible (by any means necessary) before Twitter’s insolvency, even if someone else has to front whatever Twitter was in the hook for to proceed with arbitration.

Arguably Twitter's refusal to honor the arbitration agreement should just invalidate the agreement and allow these to proceed as a class action.

Strongly agree, but if it’s faster to cough up $3M to force arbitration to start while the enterprise still has value to extract vs waiting for a court to force it because of the bad faith actions of stalling, leaving you with potentially no enterprise value to extract when a court renders a judgement, that might make the path forward more obvious.

Regardless, I hope whatever actions are taken make the plaintiffs whole.

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#86

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

prepend wrote: post #61
MattGaiser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, there should be prompt payment legislation. My family used to be in food processing. The grocers (except Walmart, which is one of the reasons they can get lower prices), will straight up just not pay by the date specified in the contract and will make you hound them.

This is just contract law. When I managed vendor contracts I had to specify the terms of payment (net30, etc) and penalty for late (2%, etc). So there’s already legislation that enforces contracts. I’m not sure how you would make a law that was helpful to force prompt payment clauses specifically. It’s important to only accept terms that you want. And if your customers keep paying late, then collect your penalty char…

My primary point is that there should be much, much quicker resolution of these cases, and when the facts aren't in doubt (e.g. contract says I delivered X, and if I did, I have the right to garnish wages/bank accounts/etc.) there should be a much faster pace to start requiring that the deadbeat pays up.

Taking the Twitter case, a lot of these folks were laid off nearly a year ago. Why is this still going on? Is there anything that could be more cut-and-dry: they were promised severance, in writing, in their termination agreements, and they haven't received it. As far as I'm aware there are 0 facts that are actually in dispute (save some of the highest up execs that were basically fraudulently fired "for cause", but that's a different story).

If Twitter wants to continue not paying them, they should have to file for bankruptcy, otherwise the laid off workers should get to take it straight from the Twitter bank accounts at this point.

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#87

Post by jonathankoren »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #16
bern4444 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every shareholder got their money at the buyout price: $54.20 per share.

That's not what the parent comment was referring to. Senior execs had golden parachutes they were due if they were terminated.

We’re not even talking about golden parachutes. Literally every employee had a severance package specified and agreed to in the sales contract. Musk straight up violated the agreement the first week.

The amount is negligible to the world’s richest man. He just violated it because he could.

http://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/elon-musk-...

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#88

Post by mlyle »

talaketu wrote: post #39
fbdab103 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The July 12th lawsuit has some choice quotes[0] on exactly what was said. >38. Section 6.9 of the Merger Agreement provided that for one year following the closing of the merger, Twitter would continue to provide Plan participants with “Severance payments and benefits . . . no less favorable than” those provided under Twitter’s policies immediately prior to the merger. > 39. The same day the Merger Agreement was anno…

Note that Employees were not a party to the merger agreement. Does an acquisition FAQ bind the company? I believe the argument is that it was effectively an offer to employees to stick around, and employees who did so effectively accepted the offer, at the cost of other opportunities in the market, and hence this was a binding contract. This doesn't seem so solid to me.

Promissory estoppel / detrimental reliance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#89

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

mlyle wrote: post #80
lost_tourist wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have debtors prisons. While there are specific cases like this where some jail time would seem just, overall it's a negative for society. It's a civil matter for a reason. I do think such cases should rip the corporate veil to shreds though, and the billionaires would have to pay up.

> We don't have debtors prisons. No one's suggesting such. We have plenty of disputed behavior and harms that are within the purview of civil courts, and then more egregious versions that are crimes. IMO, withholding significant pay that you have the ability to pay and is unambiguously contractually owed causes pretty serious harm, and society has strong reasons to criminalize this conduct. Accepting services from so…

Exactly: we already have plenty of areas where a civil case can turn into a criminal one like fraud (just ask Elizabeth Holmes).

Saying "we'll pay you severance" with 0 intention to do so sure sounds like fraud to me.

Re: “X” Didn’t Pay Severance. Now It’s Facing 2,200 Cases – and Big Fees

#90

Post by mlyle »

naveen99 wrote: post #24
dmoy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in most of the US, but as detailed in the article, telling people you're paying two months severence (presumably in writing no less) and then not paying it is likely a breach of contract law.

Don’t contracts have to be two sided ? Like a promise to donate no strings attached, and then not donating is no breach of contract. If there are strings attached to donation and the other side promises signs off on the strings, then you have a contract but it’s not a one sided donation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

Detrimental reliance/promissory estoppel.

If an employee continues to work under a contract, relying upon a promise that is later broken...

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