Ex-employer owes me salary and cpf, will I get nothing if LLP registered company closes and declare bankrupt?
Hi all, here’s the background: I worked at a retail store last year, and said employer wanted to take advantage of the covid support by gov for mid career switch.
I signed an employment letter (only my signature, boss didn’t sign back) and WhatsApp back to employer, and in the end, while the application failed, I worked with the understanding that my pay was at a certain rate.
No cpf was paid to me throughout the period, and eventually, company starts delaying my pay, until before I left, he owed me 1 full month pay, a few months pay being short of what I should receive, and no cpf paid.
I did not want to push him to a corner (I am being naive, I know) , so I told him I will wait for a maximum of 6months for him to pay what what is owed.
Now, since it is almost 6months after I left, I am thinking of giving him a heads up of my intention to go to MOM to force him to pay me my due, or him paying back me with cash, but my concern is if the company can actually just declare bankrupt and then wash all hands of any unpaid salaries and cpf contributions.
Can anyone advise me on this? Many thanks in advance.
Netizens’ comments
- Same thing happened to my friend. SME owed him 3mths pay before it went bust. He went through the legal route to get his money but he got nothing in the end because the company owed too many people money. And that was after months of waiting. After paying off other creditors there was nothing left for him. TLDR: Most probably you’re not gonna get paid.
- If the company truly has no more assets, then yes you will not be paid when it goes bankrupt.
If there is some assets left (eg equipment, IP) then you become a creditor to the company and whatever assets are liquidated will be split among creditors. - Should have gone to MOM immediately so they can go after the company before all the assets are gone.
- Hi OP I recently went through a similar situation lol. Got owed months of salary, went through lengthy process in trying to claim it back but end up company didn’t pay at all cause they declare bankrupt.
If you want to pursue further and sue you can but you’ll have to fork out money from your own pocket. Really sucks but it’s how it is.
CPF can pursue. If you are owed CPF please reach out to CPF. They are actually pretty strict about non-payment of CPF.