Openpandora Ltd (UK) Struck off email

[kasp]

They had no written contracts between them.

Emails count as legally binding contracts.

Any agreement between two entities, whether it's vocal and sealed with a handshake or written in granite and signed with blood, is a contract.  The trouble comes in proving that what was agreed upon is really what was agreed upon by the people involved.  If ED has emails from the CEO saying that they're working on it, that's a contract.  ED would only have to prove that the emails came from the company and the CEOs address, and a lawyer could subpeona their email records to show it.

They can but do you really think the CEO of CC would have done that? Laid out a specific plan of consequences for his company for failures in an email?

Besides even if by some chance he did they can always point out that Craig never delivered components on time and lied about them making the reschedule to the point the boards got ruined.  The fact is Craig screwed this up, the CC guy had a small hand in it but overall it is Craigs fault.

 

[ramboky]

Besides even if by some chance he did they can always point out that Craig never delivered components on time and lied about them making the reschedule to the point the boards got ruined.  The fact is Craig screwed this up, the CC guy had a small hand in it but overall it is Craigs fault.

Nail on the head. If CC could be held to account because of an implied contract, then Craig screwed up because he never did. If they can't be held to account, then Craig screwed up because there was no contract. Either way, Craig screwed up.

Not to mention the fact he took a pile of money from customers and ran off with it. Which makes him a thief as well as a screwup.

 

[elwing]

Not to mention the fact he took a pile of money from customers and ran off with it. Which makes him a thief as well as a screwup.

depends... he "worked" five year on the project, I think he could resonably pay himself some kind of salaries... does he merit that, certainly not but does that makes him a thief?

 

[ekianjo]

Not to mention the fact he took a pile of money from customers and ran off with it. Which makes him a thief as well as a screwup.

depends... he "worked" five year on the project, I think he could resonably pay himself some kind of salaries... does he merit that, certainly not but does that makes him a thief?

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit.

 

[elwing]

Not to mention the fact he took a pile of money from customers and ran off with it. Which makes him a thief as well as a screwup.

depends... he "worked" five year on the project, I think he could resonably pay himself some kind of salaries... does he merit that, certainly not but does that makes him a thief?

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit.

I agree, but accusing him of theft because of that seems quite hard to prove...

 

[WizardStan]

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

 

[Timstertoo]

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

If you own it? No.

 

[MrConfusion]

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

If you own it? No.

?!

/me was speechless for a moment... happens rarely, but apparently it does happen...

 

[Timstertoo]

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

If you own it? No.

?!
/me was speechless for a moment... happens rarely, but apparently it does happen...

You're not called MrConfusion for nothing

 

[sebt3]

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

If you own it? No.

?!/me was speechless for a moment... happens rarely, but apparently it does happen...

Agreed. That's the very reaason why many dont start their own shop/bussiness. What for ? people expect you dont make any money out of your hard work. And if you make any, the gouv' come to take it. Wondering why there is no job in your local area ? That definatly a part of the answer...

 

[MrConfusion]

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

If you own it? No.

?!
/me was speechless for a moment... happens rarely, but apparently it does happen...

You're not called MrConfusion for nothing

Yep, I get confused too, but I had to really put that comment of yours in "Craig context" before it became even remotely comprehensible to me. It just struck me as a "is this a joke or for real" before my brain recalled what this thread was initially about...

Maybe the bold new world of information tech is just so different because you actually can tinker during the evenings, then grow steadily from there.

But surely you must realize that in most businesses starting up a company basically means you quit your job (if, indeed, you have one) apply for a loan, set up the company, work your arse off and kind of cross your fingers you don't lose everything you have in the process... You bet pay yourself a salary! How else do you, as the private individual, pay for rent/mortgage and food for your family? Most people I know who own a company work for that company and the company has no employees aside from the owner(s). Where else would they get the money from?

edit: Oh, and most companies are not making a profit initially, you're lucky to break even...that does not mean you move under the bridge for that time period...

 

[Klumpen]

Where else would they get the money from?

From the same source like the funds for buying inventory, making test runs etc...

It's part of the investment you have to gather beforehand via work in your other/previous job or loan.

You need to calculate with yourself as a cost factor too.

It's perfectly normal in my business and therefore you have to be very sure, that you are up to it.

Conclusion: Inefficient and imcompetent people should just leave it be or face the consequences.

Of course it would all be easier, if your country would give you 0 or 1% interest rate if you got a good business plan.

 

[Timstertoo]

you only deserve a salary when you make a profit

The company I work for has yet to make a profit. I don't deserve a salary?

If you own it? No.

?!
/me was speechless for a moment... happens rarely, but apparently it does happen...

You're not called MrConfusion for nothing

Yep, I get confused too, but I had to really put that comment of yours in "Craig context" before it became even remotely comprehensible to me. It just struck me as a "is this a joke or for real" before my brain recalled what this thread was initially about...

Maybe the bold new world of information tech is just so different because you actually can tinker during the evenings, then grow steadily from there.

But surely you must realize that in most businesses starting up a company basically means you quit your job (if, indeed, you have one) apply for a loan, set up the company, work your arse off and kind of cross your fingers you don't lose everything you have in the process... You bet pay yourself a salary! How else do you, as the private individual, pay for rent/mortgage and food for your family? Most people I know who own a company work for that company and the company has no employees aside from the owner(s). Where else would they get the money from?

I should probably explain myself better.

I own a business, I hade to loan a lot of money, I work my ass of, I had to fire 2 people who worked for me for over 6 years this week due to revenue going down. Not my finest hour.

If you own a business you get to keep the profits, the rest doesn't belong to you. So if you make a loss although you have to give yourself a salary to feed and house your family, you don't deserve it. You deserve any profits made.

This misguided sense of entitllement (I work really hard so I deserve this money more then my staff, suppliers, landlord, taxman) is a big part of what went wrong here. If you are spending other peoples money because you are making a loss a little humility would go a long way. Feeling bad about necessarily paying your home rent instead of your supplier who needs money too would suit a lot better then smugly saying you deserve it. And if you have an ounce of respect you phone them and eat humble pie and come with a plan to fix it.

 

[MrConfusion]

Where else would they get the money from?

From the same source like the funds for buying inventory, making test runs etc...

It's part of the investment you have to gather beforehand via work in your other/previous job or loan.

You need to calculate with yourself as a cost factor too.

Exactly, and for your company you are a cost factor labeled as "employee" dealt with by paying salary!

The only question is: how much salary is a reasonable amount. Typically when you try to build a business you actively try to keep it sufficiently small not to wreck the company you try to build... and that's where we might get back on thread topic...

 

[MrConfusion]

...

So if you make a loss although you have to give yourself a salary to feed and house your family, you don't deserve it. You deserve any profits made.

...

Ah... sorry, now I fully got you at last.

I simply read too much into the word "deserve", I read it as: must not be paid salary at all, not as the word it is... <insert blush smiley here>.

 

[Timstertoo]

...


So if you make a loss although you have to give yourself a salary to feed and house your family, you don't deserve it. You deserve any profits made.


...

Ah... sorry, now I fully got you at last.
I simply read too much into the word "deserve", I read it as: must not be paid salary at all, not as the word it is... .

No worries and no need to blush , I realised I should have explained myself better in the first place.

 

[Klumpen]

The only question is: how much salary is a reasonable amount.

If you don't make any profits with your own company: Nothing.

You are living in debt then and should to what you can to make profits again or sink the ship and work elsewhere to pay for the failure.

After the naive logic (but I earn it!) ED too could have said: "Fuck you, I am working my ass off for the Pandora and deserve a lot more"

(That seems to be Craig style, although ED really DID work his ass off while Craig only thinks this about hisself, as it seems, maybe not even that.),

instead he even sent the profits he managed to make out of this broken ship to some people here in form of Pandoras,

while he still got 310.000k investment debts, he seems to be willing to pay back via successor, although he'll have to add a big interest by then.

 

[WizardStan]

So if you make a loss although you have to give yourself a salary to feed and house your family, you don't deserve it

So during the months that it takes to develop a product, for which you have taken a loan, you don't deserve a salary you are paying yourself in order to survive?That's kind of harsh. It's a necessity, unless you've managed to accumulate enough savings that you don't need to pay yourself anything until you start shipping. I don't feel there's anything undeserved, even the owner of the company should be working hard (harder than, even) along with their employees and deserving of periodic compensation for that work.

I see your argument, that at the end of development the owner claims the profits, except that profits belong to the company and are typically funneled back into it for paying off debts and expansion: if the owner is to get any money then they continue to pay themselves a salary from the profits. The only difference is now the company is producing its own money instead of requiring a loan.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread, for the UK at least. Craig probably has three relationships to Open Pandora Ltd:

1. Company director
2. Share holder
3. Employee

As an employee he would have got paid, just like any other employee he takes on. He has a responsibility as a director to make 'sensible' decisions, so an unreasonably high salary could cause problem if the company folds (e.g. if he took £200k investment, and gave himself a £200k salary and therefore wasn't able to carry out the duties required by the company), however if he took say £25k he isn't going to run into any problems there (typically when you take on investment you have to disclose quite a lot of information as to how the money would be spent).

There seems to be some confusion here about profits, if a company is profitable, as a shade holder, dividends can be voted, dividends come out of the company profit and can only be issued when the company is in profit.

You also need to think carefully about what you mean when you say 'started a company' or 'own a company' do you mean be on the board of directors (or be a sole director) of the company? Or do you mean be a shared holder (possibly sole share holder) of the company? As previously stated this are not mutually exclusive roles, and both roles are completely separate to being an employee of a company.

By the way, I am not saying Craig has done anything wrong/right, but there seems to be some crazy misguidance about how companies in the UK are run.

source: I am a Director, Share Holder and Employee of Paw Print Games plus my father is an account that deals with lots of companies

 

[Rockthesmurf]

Also, with regards to how ED runs his company, I think it is almost insulting to ED what is being suggest that he is doing 'what has to be done' or 'what is normal' or whatever. He is actually doing a hell of a lot more than that, he is going beyond the call of duty, funnelling money to try to save the Pandora project. Please don't assume that is in the slightest bit normal, most boards of directors would not have voted to allow this to happen, and from a business sense, that would probably be right (why should one company funnel money to save a completely unrelated company?).