Why Are You Even Here? The Surprising Attitudes of Some Expats in Thailand

[jts-khorat]

I am currently in the very unhappy situation, that the company for which I am working (and being a minority shareholder of) is in very bad shape financially, not at least because the majority shareholders are non-working partners who still receive substantial salaries.

The majority shareholder has multiple times threatened to simply "shut the company down" if we do not create revenue, and has actively and openly to all staff members tried to sell his shares for several months now. Surprisingly, negotiations with very promising buyers have fallen through, because he acted so unprofessional, that they simply moved on; in all those negotiations it was made clear to me, that I would be terminated for sure.

By now, the working environment has been poisoned to the point that by now every single member of staff is actively looking for other work, so not only me feels extremely pressured. It might be noted, that we are already working on a skeleton staff, so pretty much any departure would lead to the company not being able to create any revenue at all.

This feeds the suspicion in me, that the majority shareholder tries to create a situation, whereby as many staff as possible terminate their working relationship by themselves in as short a time as possible, therefore absolving him of the need ot pay out any severance pay at all; only after that, would he be able to sell the empty shell of the company, but with all its assets, and any profit would go to him alone.

This all would not matter so much to me, if he would not at the same time try to rope me in as a shareholder to participate in the already very quickly mounting losses of the company, while declaring very clearly, that my minority amount of shares is not part of any deal he wishes to make.

Questions:

1) if the work environment is poisoned so badly, with any trust lost, and closing of the company is threatened over a time frame of many weeks/months, does that not create the situation of unavoidable 'de facto' redundancy; eg, can I not assume actually being terminated without receiving this in writing, therefore giving me the right to severance pay? Or do I simply have to take any such abuse until I am really terminated in writing?

2) can I, as a simple shareholder (not director), be made responsible in any form for losses of the company, especially in light that the majority shareholder also elected not to let me participate in any previous company profits? Is there any actual financial responsibility for me?

I could imagine, that the answer to those questions very much has the devil in the detail; I still would be very happy to hear any opinion, of course.

Secondly, if any of you can recommend a lawyer knowledgeable in Thai Labor Law *in Phuket*, I would be thankful. My Thai is fluent, however contracts and a good amount of email communication is in English, so while he can communicate in Thai with me, he would at least need to be able to understand written English very well.

[jts-khorat]

Thanks so far for all suggestions received by BM.

Anybody with some more advice which would be the best way to leave a toxic work environment like the one I described, while at the same time minimizing potential financial liability?

Edited February 18, 2013 by jts-khorat