T
tluser
Guest
- Jurisdiction
- Texas
I am a software developer working as an independent contractor under a single employee S-corp. I was hired on a software implementation project that company A is doing for their client B. I only have agreement with company A. I have worked on the project for about 3 and half months and have not received a single payment. It is typical in my projects to get payment after two months (you invoice after a month of work and get paid after 30 days from invoice). My agreement doesn't set a payment terms but states that the payment will be made within 5 days after the end-client pays – which seemed reasonable but now I think this is too vague and I should have been more careful.
When I enquired company A about payment after about 2 months of work, I was told that the client hasn't paid them yet and the client doesn't have a any payment schedule. I was a bit surprised at first but got worried after another month of non-payment. Any subsequent emails from me about payments were simply ignored and I never got a response. Now I am almost at the end of the project. The project will go-live in a couple of weeks and I am afraid that I might never get paid. I have some questions regarding what I can do to get my payments.
(1) One option I have is to directly contact the end-client B and ask why they are not paying the services. Does that pose any legal issues down the road? I do have a confidentiality agreement with company A which mostly talks about not disclosing proprietary information but there is some language vague enough that I am not sure if it will prohibit me from asking the client about payments.
(2) Second option I have is – give them a notice that I cannot continue to work unless I am paid in two weeks and refuse to handover the code I developed. Again, I am not sure if this poses any legal problems down the road.
(3) A couple of other contractors on the project told me that they are in the same situation as me, which makes me wonder whether something fishy is going on. Either the client has paid the company A enough already and refusing to pay any more unless the project is delivered correctly or they have a fixed bid contract for which payment would be made lump sum after the project is completed. In either case, they are not being transparent with the contractors they are hiring to do the job. Does it pose any legal issues if we all the contractors form a group and take some action including (1) and (2) mentioned above?
I know my ultimate option is to hire an attorney and go after company A but I would like to avoid it as much as possible due to the cost. If the end-client gives an assurance my work will be paid eventually, I can wait but I don't know if I can ask them directly.
I understand it is not possible to give good advice without reading my agreement and knowing the whole story, but my goal here is to know what I should not be doing that can later ruin my chances of successfully suing company A. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.
When I enquired company A about payment after about 2 months of work, I was told that the client hasn't paid them yet and the client doesn't have a any payment schedule. I was a bit surprised at first but got worried after another month of non-payment. Any subsequent emails from me about payments were simply ignored and I never got a response. Now I am almost at the end of the project. The project will go-live in a couple of weeks and I am afraid that I might never get paid. I have some questions regarding what I can do to get my payments.
(1) One option I have is to directly contact the end-client B and ask why they are not paying the services. Does that pose any legal issues down the road? I do have a confidentiality agreement with company A which mostly talks about not disclosing proprietary information but there is some language vague enough that I am not sure if it will prohibit me from asking the client about payments.
(2) Second option I have is – give them a notice that I cannot continue to work unless I am paid in two weeks and refuse to handover the code I developed. Again, I am not sure if this poses any legal problems down the road.
(3) A couple of other contractors on the project told me that they are in the same situation as me, which makes me wonder whether something fishy is going on. Either the client has paid the company A enough already and refusing to pay any more unless the project is delivered correctly or they have a fixed bid contract for which payment would be made lump sum after the project is completed. In either case, they are not being transparent with the contractors they are hiring to do the job. Does it pose any legal issues if we all the contractors form a group and take some action including (1) and (2) mentioned above?
I know my ultimate option is to hire an attorney and go after company A but I would like to avoid it as much as possible due to the cost. If the end-client gives an assurance my work will be paid eventually, I can wait but I don't know if I can ask them directly.
I understand it is not possible to give good advice without reading my agreement and knowing the whole story, but my goal here is to know what I should not be doing that can later ruin my chances of successfully suing company A. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.
