Taking a recruiter to Court / MCOL unpaid invoice

FlaatusGoat

Had a chat with one of my friends, and normally I'm pretty knowledgeable but this had me confused. He's a cyber security contractor, and he had three days at the end of his project that wasn't signed by the company he was working for through the agency.

Apparently the usual discussions with everybody got no where so he's had to take the recruitment company to court (he says his contract is with the recruitment agency not the company he worked for)

I know this is shooting in the breeze without a copy of the actual contract, but where is this likely to go for him? I think the claimed total is about £1500, including legal fees and interest. He says the recruiter is trying to get him to send proof of the work he did, but he's also bound by confidentiality and thinks it's best to say silent until the MCOL deadline runs out or they respond to the claim with their defense. There was no SoW so this role was purely a 'consultancy' basis. It looks like the recruiter might still use the 'proof of work' as a defense. Any thoughts?

Brie

Can he not get a manager of some sort to say "yes he was here" or similar without giving any details?

LinLui

It is relatively normal to get confirmation from the end client. Few companies will pay without that. It seems to me that he being unreasonable to expect payment without any evidence of the work. Confidentiality surely can't include evidence that he worked? 

It's a small world.  I'd hope he's very good, because he's issued court proceedings against the agent without providing any proof of the work he did. People don't get paid based on their word alone. And these agencies know a lot of people. He might find that his action will burn some of his possible contracts. Why can't he just prove he did the work? 

SiliconChip

I'd say taking the recruiter to court for this issue is doomed to failure. Without a signed timesheet there is no evidence that work was done, the recruiter is correct not to pay for it (they would get nothing from the client for that time anyway). The real issue is why your friend didn't get their timesheet signed, it's the one thing the every contractor has at the top of their to-do list each week (IT contactor from 1992 - 2003, paid for every hour/day of work done!).

Marcon

FlaatusGoat said:

Had a chat with one of my friends, and normally I'm pretty knowledgeable but this had me confused. He's a cyber security contractor, and he had three days at the end of his project that wasn't signed by the company he was working for through the agency.

Apparently the usual discussions with everybody got no where so he's had to take the recruitment company to court (he says his contract is with the recruitment agency not the company he worked for)

I know this is shooting in the breeze without a copy of the actual contract, but where is this likely to go for him? I think the claimed total is about £1500, including legal fees and interest. He says the recruiter is trying to get him to send proof of the work he did, but he's also bound by confidentiality and thinks it's best to say silent until the MCOL deadline runs out or they respond to the claim with their defense. There was no SoW so this role was purely a 'consultancy' basis. It looks like the recruiter might still use the 'proof of work' as a defense. Any thoughts?

Why didn't the company sign off the work?

The confidentiality point is a nonsense; what he did might well be confidential, but there's nothing confidential about proving he did whatever work he did during those three days.

Did your chum actually read his contract with the recruiter, including the clause about it being his responsibility to get signed timesheets or other evidence from the client confirming the work had been done (without which the recruiter won't be able to claim their payment)? That's the key point here and the chances of success are close to zero, based wholly on the (inadequate) information you seem to have gleaned from your friend. 

Dakta

I'm not going to add anything new here but again, it's all about the timesheets.

In my short time as a contractor you signed it each week if you wanted to get paid. If you got stuck in incident, or just forgot you could still submit but pay would be a week late.

If you didn't submit you didn't get, and question number 1 if you queried would no doubt be 'well you're not on the timesheet'.

So unless there was another system in place, the million dollar question is why didn't they submit a timesheet? Is it a case of forgot or lost access before they could?

If so then you might be able to argue but otherwise not sure what they can do as technically they didn't do what they were supposed to in order to get paid. 

DullGreyGuy

FlaatusGoat said:

Had a chat with one of my friends, and normally I'm pretty knowledgeable but this had me confused. He's a cyber security contractor, and he had three days at the end of his project that wasn't signed by the company he was working for through the agency.

Apparently the usual discussions with everybody got no where so he's had to take the recruitment company to court (he says his contract is with the recruitment agency not the company he worked for)

I know this is shooting in the breeze without a copy of the actual contract, but where is this likely to go for him? I think the claimed total is about £1500, including legal fees and interest. He says the recruiter is trying to get him to send proof of the work he did, but he's also bound by confidentiality and thinks it's best to say silent until the MCOL deadline runs out or they respond to the claim with their defense. There was no SoW so this role was purely a 'consultancy' basis. It looks like the recruiter might still use the 'proof of work' as a defense. Any thoughts?

Standard is for contractor -> recruiter -> end client... the agency typically have a contract saying they get paid X% above whatever the contractor is paid which they take as their payment for having take the risk of hiring on a contingent basis (ie if they dont find the successful candidate they dont get paid at all for their work). 

It's equally normal practice that the contractor needs to get the end client to sign off a timesheet, this is used so the agency can bill the client and equally so the contractor can be paid. Normally payment terms are a relatively low number of days from the properly submitted timesheet and so the contractor isn't taking on the risk that the end client doesn't pay or is late paying. These days timesheets are normally an online system rather than pen to paper but that depends on the size of the agency. 

The question your "friend" has failed to answer is why the client hasn't signed their timesheet? Without that it's unlikely they will be successful with any claim. It seems more than reasonable that the agency is asking for other forms of proof in the absence of a timesheet, there are potential confidentiality issues too, but better than simply saying no. 

Given £1,500 claim value that will almost certainly be allocated to the Small Track for which legal fees are barred from being included, you can include the court costs in the claim. 

isplumm

Hi

What does his contract say - when I contracted - most of my contracts stated that I needed a signed timesheet to get paid? So no timesheet, no pay!

Mark

Debbie9009

I’ve also done agency work, and it was always made clear to me that I had to submit a signed timesheet to get paid, so another vote for unlikely to get far without a signed timesheet.

Marcon

Not much point going on answering when we're all saying the same thing, but getting zero clarification...

FlaatusGoat

Sorry I haven't spoken to my friend for a bit, I'll copy and paste this in and tell him he's pretty got 0 chance and to stop being a bad loser