They tricked us into signing up to some sort of gentleman's agreement where they folded the company and re-launched as a charity (or something weird like that). Basically, they said, if you chase us for the money, you'll take us down, then you won't get any money. If you let us do this our way you'll get your money if it all works out. So they fairly well held us to ransom.
I don't recall how it all worked out in the end but we definitely got some (all?) of the money - I recall my boss telling me we'd received a payment a good year or two later!
I was pretty amazed at how few rights and options we had in the situation. We had the lawyers talking us through our options at every step and they said there wasn't a lot else we could do.
That was one of a catalogue of mischievous plays I witnessed there. We were a company that were very honest and ethically sound so it was always sort of shocking to see others acting dishonestly.
The whole situation ended up being somewhat overshadowed by the accountant nicking £50k from the company savings!
I've definitely learnt to make sure you're covered as much as possible in business. Always get everything in writing and be aware that sometimes people don't act in good faith. At my current startup, my co-founder and I have a fairly all guns blazing approach to people not paying their invoices on time (we start chasing before it's even late).
They tricked us into signing up to some sort of gentleman's agreement where they folded the company and re-launched as a charity (or something weird like that). Basically, they said, if you chase us for the money, you'll take us down, then you won't get any money. If you let us do this our way you'll get your money if it all works out. So they fairly well held us to ransom.
I don't recall how it all worked out in the end but we definitely got some (all?) of the money - I recall my boss telling me we'd received a payment a good year or two later!
I was pretty amazed at how few rights and options we had in the situation. We had the lawyers talking us through our options at every step and they said there wasn't a lot else we could do.
That was one of a catalogue of mischievous plays I witnessed there. We were a company that were very honest and ethically sound so it was always sort of shocking to see others acting dishonestly.
The whole situation ended up being somewhat overshadowed by the accountant nicking £50k from the company savings!
I've definitely learnt to make sure you're covered as much as possible in business. Always get everything in writing and be aware that sometimes people don't act in good faith. At my current startup, my co-founder and I have a fairly all guns blazing approach to people not paying their invoices on time (we start chasing before it's even late).