TR EMERITUS

I generally don’t post about insolvency issues even though I’ve worked in the Insolvency industry for around a decade. The reason is simple. I am not a qualified insolvency practitioner and I am not in the position to give “advice.” However, there was a discussion on Linkedin about the fact that the staff of Flash Coffee were not getting paid because the company was in liquidation. While I am not a qualified insolvency practitioner, I’ve often been broke (still am most of the time) and been in situations where payment has been delayed, I thought I’d have a crack and giving my two cents worth. [LINK] Not getting paid for work sucks. As much as we talk about money not being everything, it is one of the key reasons why we go to work. Money remains the essential element in ensuring that we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. Like it or not, we have bills to pay at the end of every month. So, when you don’t get paid for the month, you get f***ed. The mortgage or rent, phone bills, transport bills still keep going whether you get paid at the end of the month. Unless you have a huge cash cushion, not getting paid for the month is something that can put you into the financial dog house. So, what can one do about it? Well, the best thing to do is to expect the situation. Most of us go to work with the guaranteed expectation of getting paid. For the most part most of us get paid on a regular enough basis to take the mindset that getting paid is a given, its merely a question of whether you can reach a stage of getting more. However, what most of us in the private sector forget is that our employers are enterprises of one sort or another and by their very nature required to make money. The reality is that businesses can fall into financial difficulty and the reality is that jobs are expendable and like or not businesses go down and your salary can be delayed and denied. So, start on the premise that being screwed is a very real possibility. As long as you, as an employee, accept that you can get screwed as a possibility, then you can prepare for it. Accept that you will need to put money aside. You will need a side-hustle or an investment portfolio that can replace your main income should you ever need it. It also pays to understand that there are obvious signs if your employer is facing financial difficulties. The most obvious one comes when getting your basic salary is a struggle. Look for something else the moment your salary is a problem for your employer. The logic is simple – if he or she cannot pay you for a month – what makes you think they’ll be able to pay you for the next? Now, what happens when your employer goes under and a liquidator replaces the directors as the main point of contact in the company? The only thing you can realistically do is to fill out what is known as a Proof of Debt or POD. This form should be provided to you by the liquidator. This form means that you “officially” are recognised as a creditor of the Company. For Singaporeans reading this, you can find out more about the various forms that need to be filled out in an insolvency situation: [LINK] As a creditor you have the right to attend creditor’s meetings and you have the right to find out what’s going on. However, you need to understand that the liquidator is duty bound to minimise liabilities for the benefit of ALL creditors. Your legal employment will be terminated because everyday you are legally employed adds to the liabilities, which inevitably means that there is less for the everyone. Now, one needs to look at being paid from an insolvent Company. Under Singapore’s insolvency regime (which should be similar to most Common Law jurisdictions), there is an order in which certain people get paid. [LINK] As an employee, your salary ranks as a preferential payment. Hence, once the liquidator has taken his or her cut, the salaries become the next priority, even ahead of the tax man. However, you, as an employee who is owed money needs to understand two key things. First and foremost, the only way anyone gets paid is from what’s left over of the Company. Think of the liquidator as a butcher trying to carve meat from the bones of a carcass. You only get meat if there’s meat to carve off. So, once a company enters an insolvent situation, you have to be prepared for the reality that there simply isn’t enough money to pay off ANY creditor. Then, the nature of the debt also changes. In a normal situation a salary is what you get for doing work. However, in an insolvent situation, even if the debt incurred is a result of salary owed, its more like an IOU. There is no obligation on the part of the liquidator to pay you within a certain time frame as in the case of a normal salary. Liquidators do not just make payments to creditors. There is a statutory requirement for them to advertise their intention to pay and then details of the payment. Such advertisements are usually in the “notice” section of the financial press (in the case of Singapore, it’s usually Business Times). Treat any employer like an elderly relative, where you do what you need to do and they will need to do in a relationship marked by obligations. However, expect that one day, they will pass on and the obligations they once had to you will no longer exist and treat what you get from the will as a bonus.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able to meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.    Read More →

I have been wondering about marriage for a lifetime. Last time I checked, it’s in the vows. That is what purifies the wedding night, a union till death. Many men (or husbands) do struggle with it. Not the marriage, but the duration. It’s hard for men to imagine how a union can be kept fresh and novel after some time. I am sure you’ve heard, monogamy is monotony. Some may even argue it is unnatural. That’s not how we have evolved, they said. Look at our history, love is a latecomer in marriages. In the past, marriages are arranged by fathers, for many reasons, and love is just a bonus. After doing divorces for decades, I realise there is the 2-year itch, 5-year inch, that unmistakable 7-year inch, and after that, the whole body itches. While men are always on the hunt for pretty young things, women are looking for stable trusted companions. At the risk of oversimplifying, I realise there is a direct relationship between time and lust in marriages that struggle (or are flesh-focused). The longer the time the couple are married, the stronger the lust. But that relationship inverses for time and love, that is, the longer the time the couple are married, the weaker their love for each other. This may be due to the novelty factor, because the dish you have ordered has turned cold, while the dish on the other table is still piping hot. They say love is a battlefield. Indeed it is. You fight for it. You protect it with your body, soul and mind. The moment you wander around the palace of your mind, you are sure to find a Bathsheba waiting in sight. Lust shines a torch in the darkness, and it is the only thing you see. Imagination is costless, until it becomes costly. Consequences is the tortoise in the race of personal responsibility. Pleasure is the hare. Pleasure always comes in first; it blinds you. Consequences come later; it overwhelms you. In the folklore as well as marriage, the tortoise eventually wins, if we live intentionally, and run the marathon with our vows always in sight. I write this because I realised novelty causes men’s mind to wander, but a little power and wealth, even those that are inflated by one’s delusion, put their wandering mind on speed dial. It takes a push of a button to cause them to release all restraint. The animal in us go on a prowl when we let our lust howl. What then is our defence to these words by author Edward Abbey (who was married five times): - “Modern men and women are obsessed with the sexual; it is the only realm of primordial adventure still left to most of us. Like apes in a zoo, we spend our energies on the one field of play remaining; human lives otherwise are pretty well caged in by the walls, bars, chains, and locked gates of our industrial culture”? Alas, enough is enough. Marriage is serious. It is life-transforming. It makes or breaks a life or two, or even more. Take it serious enough and you are happier for it, fuller, contented, complete. Take it otherwise and it is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. I believe that love will always triumph over lust, because a love forged by unwavering faithfulness in partnership with time makes sex but only one of its unspeakable joys. In the book The Meaning of Marriage by the late pastor Timothy Keller (with wife Kathy Keller), Kathy wrote this in her notes: - “We came to realize that orgasm is great, especially climaxing together. But the awe, the wonder, the safety, and the joy of just being one is stirring and stunning even without that. And when we stopped trying to perform and just started trying to simply love one another in sex, things started to move ahead. We stopped worrying about our performance. And we stopped worrying about what we were getting and started to say, “Well what can we do just to give something to the other?” Indeed, as one wise man puts it, “Love's give and give, and lust's take and take.” (Dr Yap). And as pastor Keller wrote, “…the greatest sexual pleasure should be the pleasure of seeing your spouse getting pleasure.” While lust wants it all for himself, love wants to give it all for her. Once you arrive there, once your marriage matures to that level, sex becomes other-directed. It ensures not just mutuality, it is primarily enraptured by it. Imagine that kind of love. Imagine the propensity for greater love over time. In fact, time will not dampen such love. Like a lighted match and a flowing river of kerosene, time would only fire up the streams of passion even more. The nights are brighter, the days seem shorter, the joy deeper, and the passion more sublime when you are consumed by such love. Such love can only be forged, welded together and held up by a lifelong marriage. Such love is one that fornication or one-night stand pales in comparison. When a couple enter into this exclusive marital covenant, they hold in their hands the priceless ticket to enjoy this union that is unbreakable. It is not skin-deep sex, but selfless love. I therefore challenge all men (with or without itch) to win this love, to work for this love. Put aside your-self and your lust to fight for it. Be defined by it. We therefore hold in our hand this ticket. We shall enter this union. We shall not look back. Because in exchange for all the transient pleasures we leave behind, the pleasure that awaits us in this union is one that no worldly pleasures can satisfy. Let me leave you with this quote, which is dedicated to the one I love. And I dare you to do the same, that is, upload a picture of her on the wedding day, and make your declaration openly. If you mean it, trust me, it will change you. “The world, for me, and all the world can hold Is circled by your arms; for me there lies, Within the lights and shadows of your eyes, The only beauty that is never old.” (James Weldon Johnson “Beauty That is Never Old”)   Michael Han * The author was a Director at Han & Lu  Law Chambers and blogs on Facebook.      Read More →

China's former Premier Li Keqiang has died of a heart attack, he was 68. The former second most powerful man reportedly had a heart attack on Thursday and passed away in Shanghai just after midnight.    Read More →