Insolvency lies

bigjluk

My friend along with many others worked as sub contractors to a company in construction.the long and short of it is,they all owed from £3k upwards each,totally about 30k.my friend has received a letter off the receivers with the list off creditors who are owed,but their ex boss has only stated there is only 9k owed in wages,and not to all of the people who are owed,he had also started another business before insolvency,but in his wifes name.also he has paid a couple of men x amount a week trying to win them round to come and work for him again.how does all this stand with the law,and what are my friends options.

Flyright

Has the ex-boss gone bankrupt personally or is the company in liquidation..? Do the subcontractors have any proof of the amounts of wages they are owed..?

Tixy

Subcontractors wouldn't be included in the wages figures - because the are not employees.
They would form part of the 'trade creditors' or 'owed to suppliers' figure.

Wages are shown as a separate amount in a list of creditors because employees are treated preferentially. Subcontractors are not though.

If your friend is considering providing services to the new company then I'd suggest he asks the company for upfront payments to start with, which is quite usual for suppliers to ask for in this kind of situation.
Or at least payment each day for work performed. That way they'll never be more than 1 days worth of work owed to them by this customer.