Chinese staff take legal action against Ardent Digital over unpaid salary claim
Staff of a recently closed digital agency in China are taking formal legal proceedings against their former Australian owner, which they claim owes them unpaid salaries after they were dismissed without warning on the day of the closure.
Activate Shanghai, which was launched two years ago by Sydney-based agency ArdentDigital to service Australian clients targeting China, was shut on 7 November after running into financial difficulties. All of its Shanghai-based staff were let go. Parent company BlueArc went into voluntary administration the day before, citing future cash flow issues.
The team of 10 claim they are entitled to a week’s pay for the week until the agency folded, and have not received a response to a legal letter demanding that outstanding salaries and milestone payments it says BlueArc owes to its Chinese operation are paid.
In the letter, the group gave its former employer a deadline to respond to its claims, which has now passed. The group has now taken legal proceedings against ArdentDigital, a spin-off agency of BlueArc, which went into voluntary administration in Australia at the beginning of November.
Activate Digital, which is a separate legal entity to BlueArc, is seeking legal advice from a solicitor in China, and says it has not been given enough time to respond to its Chinese staff’s claims given the complexities of a cross-border legal issue.
The the full story can be fount on our sister site Mumbrella Asia.
