Perth Game Company CEO Takes IP By Night 356
snicho99 writes "A US owned gaming company has fled Australia, leaving unpaid employees and a massive tax bill. Apparently many staff have been working unpaid for months to allow their game to ship and hopefully the company to recover. Interzone's Perth (Western Australia) office was created with the assistance of a state government grant. Last week Interzone's (American) CEO
entered the building at night and removed all the servers and IP so that Interzone could continue production at a new company they have opened in Ireland. The staff caught him on camera. More background here."
Re:Other countries are interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Remember that it's not so bad to leave a country to do business elsewhere. When I worked in Naples, I would not get almost any pay. Yes, I was a kid and I was supposed to work for my father, but I wanted something off from it. If it doesn't work like you want to, you go somewhere where it does.
It IS so bad when you use a bunch of legal dodgery to take ownership of the IP while evading the millions of dollars of debt that you owe to the staff. It IS bad when you break a whole bunch of laws to get that IP out of the country, so you can start another studio in another country without actually paying what you owe to any of your employees. And (personal conjecture here) it IS bad when you will most likely you will do exactly the same to the new studio.
Disclaimer: IAAFIZE. I am a former IZ employee.
Re:Bunch of Asian Employees ? (Score:2, Informative)
wikipedia Australia, look at the map, wikipedia Asia, look at the map. They are different continents
We may have a ridiculous amount of asian immigrants that still speak chinese/japanese after they get here, but that still does not make us a part of asia.
There is much more to this than the Summary states (Score:5, Informative)
The firm that provides the middleware (BigWorld) based in Sydney, provided a server engineer (contracted by Mike to clear out the IP assets from the server.)
The Interzone employees have been fantastic, in collecting evidence, and staying together to fight for what they are due.
This is not the first time this has occured in Australia, similar shit has happened in the last year with firms Transmission, and Fuzzyeyes. Video games, one of the last places for cow-boy businessmen.
For people who would like to read more on this, check these links:
http://www.tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/120210/interzone-games-perth-closes-staff-locked-out [tsumea.com]
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/wa-dev-interzone-games-close-to-liquidation/ [kotaku.com.au]
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/02/interzone-ceo-marty-brickey-responds/ [kotaku.com.au]
And this video where the employees confront one of the directors http://vimeo.com/9574704 [vimeo.com]
Trading while insolvent. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bunch of Asian Employees ? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not nice. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually....
First is the employees super funds, then taxes, then wages, then everyone else they owe money to.
The employees are covered for loss of wages by the GEERS scheme, which they can submit and get their: Lost wages; Lost holiday pay; Redundancy payout (according to industry standards or their contract, and if contract its subject to evaluation).
According to Australian law anyway :)
Re:Call wikipedia (Score:1, Informative)
That doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a venue for that sort of thing. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and people like you are polluting it with all kinds of unencyclopedic content that doesn't belong there. Stop it.
If you want to post definitions, you should put them on Wiktionary.
Thanks for the hand-holding, pal. Do you have any other insightful guides on how one should use other websites? I'm sure your heads just brimming with information.
BTW, you should Wiki "joke".
Re:There is much more to this than the Summary sta (Score:1, Informative)
In point of fact, you are incorrect. On the ABC News Story [youtube.com] on the issue, he actually made a comment whereby he said he'd been "watching this company closely. Which is of course, a crock of shit. Many IZ members have been in direct contact with Troy Buswell's office over this issue already. I guess you only watch 7/10/9 eh? ;)
Re:Trading while insolvent. (Score:3, Informative)
ASIC were fully aware what was going on. I'm afriad to tell you as an Australian citizen who BEGGED ASIC to take action, that ASIC are a bunch of pussies and toothless tigers.
John Howard and the former Liberal Government watered down ASIC's powers to the point that they are nothing more than a wasteful public entity paying lip service - they only care about the "big fish" that they cannot ignore (due to press coverage), and as recent media coverage over the last six months has shown, they can't even catch people like One.Tel and Firepower.
ASIC is a toothless tiger. Tell your MP.
That's the only way things will change.
Re:Hard Luck (Score:5, Informative)
It's sad that these folks needed to learn this the hard way, but it's important to know that you need to get the hell out of a business that can't meet payroll. Start looking for a new job right away, and make sure to file a claim to the labor relations organization for that jurisdiction if you don't get your back pay in a timely manner. Paying your employees is a top priority and a legal obligation for any business, whether or not they are for-profit or non-profit. (Sad, but I have a friend who got stiffed by a church of all places)
If a company don't have the funds available to pay it's people, they're already screwed. It's only a matter of time before they either close up shop or their creditors shut the place down at that point.
Re:Other countries are interesting (Score:1, Informative)
That's kranzky finding a little humour in an otherwise horrible situation ;-)
Re:Bunch of Asian Employees ? (Score:5, Informative)
We actually have very few Japanese immigrants but they do love spending their holidays and money here, particularly in Queensland where the local economy is heavily dependent on tourisim.
The Japanese are golf mad and a golf trip to Oz to play on a real golf course is cheaper than a golf club membership in Tokyo to play on a multi story driving range. On the whole they are very well mannered guests in our country and tend to stick to organised tour groups because of the language barrier.
Also every chineese immigrant I have ever met speaks english, it's a requirement to get into the country unless you come in as a refugee and we do not recognise people from China as refugees.
As you probably know there is a minority racist element in our population who idolise people such as Pauline Hanson [wikipedia.org]. Hanson is ironically now emmigrating to the UK after basically being ridiculed and laughed out of politics by the rest of us. I think she is in for a shock when she finds out how many second and third generation "brown people" are wandering around the UK.
For the non-Aussie readers, members of Hansen's minority are generally refered to as "yobbos", which when translated into American means "rednecks".
Re:Bunch of Asian Employees ? (Score:3, Informative)
Er I'm assuming this is a troll, but just in case anyone else doesn't realise, Australia has a reasonable number of ethnically east Asian people. As in >10% of the population (and closer to >20% in some urban areas).
Australia isn't technically in Asia, but its geographic proximity definitely affects the makeup of the population. Far more Asians per capita here than in the US, for instance.
Re:Call wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
(demonstrably untrue in civil or other engineering firms where the company may be responsible but the individual is not)
Uh, what? Dead wrong for civil firms at least, I'm quite certain that a certified Professional Engineer that is found guilty of negligence can both get fined by his state's PE organization and/or lose his license (aka tens of thousands of dollars a year in salary) - here's a source for you. [fbpe.org] IANAL so I wouldn't know the details about being personally sued but I've heard many stories about it happening. From my understanding PE's are COMPLETELY responsible and liable for drawings they sign off on; that's why they get paid the big bucks.
Re:Bunch of Asian Employees ? (Score:3, Informative)
Ideologically I'm also not in favour of legislation based on race but pragmatically the aboriginals have not benifited from the so called "lucky country". Until very recently most lived in what can only be described as thrird world conditions [watoday.com.au], lost between stone age traditions and the 20th century laws.
We also have race based legislation banning the sale of alcohol in many of the aboriginal settlements, their traditional social structures are 40kyrs old and have never had to deal with alcoholisim until the last hundred years or so. Aborigines are also permitted to hunt otherwise protected species on their reserves. IMHO these laws are a GoodThing(TM).
MOD PARENT UP!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Designing and or building something does not make you an engineer! Is the guy at Quiznos as sandwich engineer because be designs sandwiches? Are you an engineer because you design computer programs? See the similarity?
For the most part CS people have no idea what they're missing versus someone with a real engineering degree. I took classes in both Computer Science and Computer Engineering in college. The CS department was in the College of Sciences. The Computer Engineering department was in the College of Engineering. The two colleges (and their associate programs) could not have been more different. The CS program felt very much like Math or Physics. The CE program felt like EE or MechE. This is not a subtle thing...the differences permeate the students' education from day one!
IEEE (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sure that many people are mis-advertising themselves, but you also have a specific definition of what you consider an "Engineer" to be that is narrower than IEEE definitions (I'm referring to this comment: "it is not engineering").
Re:Call wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Call wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)
I always think it's hysterical when American engineers get so up in arms about "mere" programmers daring to call themselves engineers. In the UK, the status of Chartered Engineer [wikipedia.org] is given to trained, professional engineers in many disciplines. Each discipline has it's own professional body who are permitted to issue the certification, and guess what? The BCS (British Computer Society) are one of those bodies, and can award CEng status [bcs.org] to suitably qualified people. There's no mention of having to understand Newtonian Mechanics as a prerequisite...
Re:Not nice. (Score:1, Informative)
Actually....
Having just studied some law on Receiverships and Administration in Australia, the basic order is:
1. the Liquidators (they are first, otherwise no company would take on such risky work to ensure everyone else gets paid with what is left)
2. Secured Creditors (e.g. banks with a mortgage secured over land, or a loan secured over the office equipment for example). The secured asset is sold and any money made from that is applied against the debt. If the debt is not paid off in full, the remainder becomes an unsecured debt.
3. Employee benefits, including salary/wages, superannuation, holiday pay and redundancy pay
4. Unsecured debts (e.g. general loans, bank overdrafts), which includes taxes payable to the Crown (any level of government)
5. Shareholders
In your example above, it looks like management had taken out a loan of some sorts, and used all the shop equipment as security, hence, the bank got first dibs on the proceeds of that sale, before remaining money was applied to debts lower down the chain.
Fluid Dynamics for Computer Engineers? (Score:2, Informative)
this list actually covers what you'd need to know as a COMPUTER ENGINEER to pass the fundamentals of engineering exam
I was with you until here. My degree was in Computer Engineering, and we were never required to take fluid dynamics (Where is the Z transform in your list? In case you hadn't noticed; our controllers are all discrete since the 70's ;-). Understanding the theory behind the PID controller is something that I would look for). I'm hard pressed to see how fluid dynamics would matter outside of Mechanical Engineering? I agree with your general premise that programmers in the engineering world benifit from engineering knowledge. I work in a company that makes SCADA software, and we have a mix of people from engineering and computer-science backgrounds. Some observations.
Engineers can make lousy programmers. Believe it or not, there is lot of programming theory that is important and not taught in an engineering degree. Much of the worst, most unmaintainable code I have ever seen has been written by very good engineers, who simply have no grasp of programming concepts beyond the basic. On the flip side the engineers in our team are invaluble due to their understanding of how the end-user (who are also engineers), needs to use the product to get the job done. Finally, I'd like to say that our most productive coders are guys from pure programming backgrounds. This is not to say that some of the guys from engineering backgrounds are not productive, it just seems to me that there is a particular type of person that is attracted to programming alone and can produce astonishing amounts of quality code in a short period of time. Perhaps the type of person who is attracted to engineering just isn't the conducive to this? In our company, we need the mix (and I like having the mix), but if I were creating some kind of web startup, I wouldn't employ guys with an engineering background.
They moved to Ireland? Bad move. (Score:3, Informative)
The management moved to Ireland? That's a bad place to go bankrupt, [dilloneustace.ie] and a good place to sue creditors. Ireland still has bankruptcy law left over from the days when English landlords ran the country. Creditors can put a company or an individual into involuntary bankruptcy. There's nothing like "debtor in possession" bankruptcy (US "Chapter 11") in Ireland. Personal bankruptcy? The debtor may retain "such articles of clothing, household furniture, bedding, tools and equipment of his trade or profession or other necessities for himself, his wife, his children, and other dependent relatives living with him, as he may select, not exceeding in value EUR 3,175."
It gets worse. Bankruptcies put individuals on a public blacklist. Officers of companies that go bankrupt can't be officers of a company again. Individuals can't get credit of more than EUR 630.
The employees need to get a judgment in Australia against the CEO, which shouldn't be hard since he fled the country with unpaid employees. Then hire an aggressive collection agency in Dublin. [eircollect.com] ("100% success rate for many clients. No collection, no fee.") There are international collection agencies, such as Global Credit Solutions, with branches in 80 countries. They have offices in both Australia and Ireland.