My Client Entered a Provisional Insolvency Proceedings

Thomas T. Frost wrote:



It always helps to get the complete information. If it is the insolvency administrator that tells you work will be paid for this period, I would tend to trust him or her, since it's the administrator who determines which expenses can be paid and which not. Originally, you said: 'In order to restructure their company, they [i.e. the company] are asking us freelancers to keep accepting jobs from them,' but that is clearly not the case, since it's the administrator who asks for it. That is entirely different.

As for work delivered until February, the only thing you can do is to report it according to the instructions. You can try to obtain more information to satisfy your curiosity, but it will not give you any influence on the proceedings. It is probably not the administrator's first priority to reply to that sort of requests. They are busy people and would be focused on the tasks delegated to them by the court and the law.

PS: Try to access the official documentation on the website I mentioned.


[Edited at 2024-03-30 16:46 GMT]

Dan Lucas wrote:


A very difficult situation, and you have my sympathies. That is a significant sum of money for anybody.

It seems to me that the key issue is whether cooperating with the insolvency administrator, in the form of continuing to work with the company, has any bearing on whether you will get paid for the jobs that you submitted before the company went bankrupt. My understanding is that suppliers are a long way down the pecking order when it comes to getting paid, because they are essentially unsecured creditors. Surely there will be a very clear demarcation between everything that happened before February 26, and everything that after that point?

To put it another way, it seems unlikely to me that the administrator will allocate to you, from the limited pot of funds remaining for the payment of creditors, more of the money you are owed just because you have been nice to the company since it went insolvent. But then I am not an insolvency practitioner.

I suppose in theory in the future they could pay you back some of the money they owe, but in reality is that likely?

Regards,
Dan

Philippe Etienne wrote:


I read that about a fortnight ago: https://slator.com/translation-ai-agency-lengoo-files-for-bankruptcy/

I don't know how insolvency works, but for what it's worth, I faced two bankruptcies: French agency in 2001, French middle-man personal bankruptcy in 2010.
In the first case, I got nothing from about €3600 of invoices (if I remember well), in the second, €1000 out of €1500 of invoices.

The first thing to do is to make yourself known as a creditor to the amdinistrator and file your unpaid invoices. If you keep working with the company, it means you trust that they will recover.

As Thomas mentioned, providers like us are at the end of the list. So if the company actually folds and you do get some money back in 3, 4 or 5 years, you'll be happy.

Good luck.

Philippe

Christina B. wrote:

I am really sorry to hear about that.

I stopped working for this agency more than a year ago after a rather unpleasant experience:

An error occurred in their automatically created monthly invoice (the project manager had accidently set an amount to 0,00 €). When I pointed it out, she was unable to correct it and she did not know who I could contact to have it corrected either. It took me a month of mailing and calling until I finally found someone who was able to help me. Then it took her a month to get i done ... and after another month I got the money.

When I called the number published on their website, the person who picked up the phone got very unprofessional and even unpleasant once he understood that I wasn't a potential customer but only a freelancer who needed help...

When I asked them to remove me from their translator pool I had to send several mails until they stopped sending me requests. And I still get their "general information" mails, that's how I got informed about the bankruptcy.

The German press saw the agency as another victim of the crisis, but in my opinion there were too many organisational problems. Everything went well during the first years, then they tried to lower the prices, PMs came and went, they spoke neither the source- nor the target language, the internal workflows were unclear and the level of automation was so high that that system seemed out of control as soon as something went wrong.

I really hope you will get at least some of your money.

Yasutomo Kanazawa wrote:

P.S. The links you provided do not work. I get the message "ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT".

Thomas T. Frost wrote:



Unfortunately, forum rule 8 does not allow it:

'Outsourcers may not be discussed specifically.
Posts or comments regarding a specific outsourcer (identified by name, reference, link or other means), whether positive or negative, are not permitted. (To indicate their likelihood of working again with a given outsourcer, site users should use the ProZ.com Blue Board.)'

Only when it's a scammer can we name names because a scammer is not an outsourcer.

It seems to be a German company. The German insolvency register can be searched at https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap/suche.jsf;jsessionid=oeVsPRmyLaJM_UMBrkDKdc04C6iZMo0AUHYAUrpM.node-086 , but since we don't know any of the search criteria, this isn't helpful.

Enrique Bjarne Strand Ferrer wrote:

A company in insolvency proceedings is no longer an outsourcer.

Thomas T. Frost wrote:



The links must be temporary, then.

Go to https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap/suche.jsf

Enter the following search criteria:

Bundesland: Berlin
Gericht: Charlottenburg (Berlin)
Datum der Veröffentlichung:
Von: 01/02/2024
Bis: 31/03/2024
Firma/Nachname: the company name including 'GmbH'

Then click on the search button 'Suchen'.

philgoddard wrote:

Always set a credit limit, even for your most trusted customers. Mine varies, but it's usually around $1,000. They quite understand when I say they've reached their limit.

Insolvency is not something that happens overnight. The chances are they were letting their debt to you build up, knowing they wouldn't be able to pay it.

Arne Krueger wrote:

It seems as if there is still business activity for this entity? Then it is most likely just a debt restructuring. But we have no clue about the balance sheet of your client. Could be that your "debts" are not being touched, but could also be that it is partially lost/all lost. Just wait for the proceeding and what the administrator has to say. If there is complete silence (which doesn't seem the case as your client still corresponds with you in a friendly and positive manner), get a lawyer. Also, we have no clue about the legal form of your client. There are differences in German law as to what they chose to run their business (we call this the difference(s) between "natürliche" and "juristische Personen"). Each form has their own regulations regarding debts. Difficult to give you an exact answer based on the information you provided. But just wait for aforementioned proceeding.

Yasutomo Kanazawa wrote:

Unfortunately, it still doesn't work. I tried double-clicking on it, and I even tried copying & pasting the link but I get the same error message I mentioned earlier.