Any advice on taking (ex) employers to court?

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jeffrigs

Barker

Joined: July 06, 2004
Posts: 132

Status: Offline

Posted: Aug 13, 2005 - 05:37 PM
Post subject: Any advice on taking (ex) employers to court?

I guess this probably belongs under another heading, but I'll stick it where it gets the most traffic -- until the moderators decide to move it at least Razz

Does anyone have experience suing companies over unpaid wages? I'm debating whether this is worthwhile in my case since the amount is small (10,000 rmb) and I've already punk'd the bosses in other ways (they cheated on their taxes and now the SAIC guys know about it). This is a foreign company so in theory I could go to court outside China, but I'm pretty sure that's not worth the hassle.

Any suggestions/horror stories/etc. regarding experiences with the Chinese legal system?

- Jeff

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DeeLphiC

Low Seater

Joined: Mar 11, 2005
Posts: 3333

Status: Offline

Posted: Aug 13, 2005 - 06:26 PM

Hi Jeff,

sorry to learn about your case.

do not be too optimisti and positive with the legal system here. if possible get yourself a chinese labour lawyer.

not that it is impossible to do labour law research on your own, but all about the network and contact thing, if you know what I mean.

my case is still on. almost 17 months now. the legal system here is not sophisticated enough, therefore there are quite a lot grey shadow area that people can play tricks on ... such as appliable hearing procedures ... terms ... timings ... about evidence and backups ... about court operation and procedures ... about being wanted to talk with judge ...

I wont go too detailed here PM me if you need relevant laws and regulations I have downloaded most of them and put into a binder, and I dont mind sharing with you the details long as it can be of any help to your case. Just Let me know!

Cheers, and good luck

D

kamprad

Talker

Joined: July 27, 2005
Posts: 81

Status: Offline

Posted: Aug 13, 2005 - 06:53 PM

If the company is in China, the governing law be labour law of china.
Pls refer to Article 79 & 82 of the labour law of china.
Article 79 Once a labour dispute occurs, the parties involved can apply to the labour dispute mediation committee of their unit for mediation; if it can not be settled through mediation and one of the parties asks for arbitration, application can be filed to a labour dispute arbitration committee for arbitration. Any one of the parties involved in the case can also apply to a labour dispute arbitration committee for arbitration. The party that has objections to the ruling of the labour arbitration committee can bring the case to a people's court.

Article 82 The party that asks for arbitration shall file a written application to a labour dispute arbitration committee within 60 days starting from the date of the occurrance of a labour dispute. Generally speaking, the arbitration committee shall produce a ruling within 60 days after receiving the application. The parties involved shall implement arbitration rulings if they do not have any objections to these rulings.

The time limitation is within 60 days starting from the day you know or you should know the occurrance of the dispute. It is a very simple case, if you have enough evidence, and its still within the time limitation, u sure can get back ur money. However this is a very tiny case, the litigation cost is at least a half of 10,000, so the most economic way is to report the dispute to the labour adminstration dept., I'm not sure it works out though.