Are directors employees of the company? Directors tell the company what to do but most directors also get paid for their services. Does that make directors employees of the company?
In the U.S. a board member would not be an employee just by virtue of being a board member, even if they were compensated for attending board meetings. The CEO, an employee, might or might not also be a board member. Employees can be fired by their manager. A board member can't be fired from the board but, typically, only removed by a vote of shareholders. They are not assigned tasks by managers of the company. This is 100% clear in CA under employment code 622 (a) “Employee” does not include a director of a corporation or association performing services in his or her capacity as a director. I was a CEO of a private company I co-founded I was a board member as a result of voting myself on the board via my stock ownership. The majority of the board could fire me as CEO but I would still be a board member. If outside board members did get compensation, it would be as a consultant, paid with a 1099. The CA code does say that a board member could take on actual work, like auditing financial information, that might fall under the activities of an employee.
Why do you think they have the same shareholders? There’s no reason to believe that they are related corporations just because they share an address. I am shareholder and director of 4 corporations. 3 have the same shareholders in the same proportion. The other has different shareholders. All of them have their registered office at my accountant’s premises. It’s a small suburban practice so there are probably only a few hundred companies at that address. A large city practice would have thousands or tens of thousands. The property management company probably provides the same service.
am I right in my understanding of "payment in lieu" in the above scenario? No. You are not being “paid in lieu” of anything; you are being paid your accrued entitlement. Payment in lieu refers to payment instead of some other obligation. In employment it usually refers to an employer paying an employee instead of requiring the employee to work out the notice period which of the daily rates at the top of the post should I request? Neither. The correct rate is the one your employer used - your annual rate divided by the number of days you get paid for. Annual leave continues to accrue while you are on annual leave (or any other paid leave). is there a legal basis for such a request? No.
Since this is a board about law, the legal answer is that New Jersey does not regulate vacation pay: In New Jersey, employers are not required to provide employees with vacation benefits, either paid or unpaid. If an employer chooses to provide these benefits, it is only required to comply with its established policy or employment contract. The specific law cited by that web page is this one, which says that &quot;Nothing in this chapter requires an employer to pay an employee for hours the employee is not required to be at his or her place of work because of holidays, vacation, lunch hours, illness and similar reasons.&quot; So whether your boss can count weekend days as part of your vacation will depend on your employment contract and the established policies of your employer. Unfortunately, that's not something this forum can provide advice on.
On what grounds would you sue? Contract Well, I think that you would struggle to find the necessary elements (see What is a contract and what is required for them to be valid?) In particular, you would struggle to prove that there was intention to create legal relations on their part and possibly on yours. Are you able to identify in your "back &amp; forth" a clear, unequivocal offer and acceptance? Without knowing the details of the "back &amp; forth": I was hoping that someone at $organization might be willing to write an article explaining what you do, the history of the organization and how it works appears on the face of it to be a request for a gift; not an offer to treat. Promissory Estoppel If you don't have a contract then it is possible (IMO unlikely) that they induced you by your actions to commit resources (your time in writing) in anticipation of a reward (them publishing what you wrote). To be estopped they would have to have known that you were writing the article in the expectation that it would have your organisation's name in it, that they did not intend for that to happen and that they allowed you to invest those resources notwithstanding. If you can prove all of that then you can require them to do what they promised. The big difficulty I see in this is did you tell them that a) you were writing the article, b) it would have your name in it and c) you expected it to be published in that form. Copyright If they publish the work or a derivative work without your permission you can sue for breach of copyright. As it stands, they probably have an implied licence to publish and you would need to explicitly revoke that. Options There are two reasons to go to court: Money Principle If you are going to court for money then this is at best a risky investment and at worst a gamble: balance your risk and reward carefully. If you are going to court for a principle then I simultaneously admire your principles and think you're an idiot. Make a deal Explain that the reason that you wrote the article was a) to support their fine publication and the fantastic work it does (even if you don't) and b) to garner good publicity for your organisation. You understand and admire their strong editorial stance (especially if you don't) but the article involved a considerable amount of work and could they see their way clear to give you a significant discount (~80%) on a full page ad facing the article.
Not very nice of the employer, actually quite cowardly. Being not nice and cowardly is not against the law. Being in the EU, and having been employed for ten years, the company will have duties to find a different position in the company at the same pay, and only when that fails, the employee can be laid off and will have a reasonable amount of notice, plus a reasonable amount of redundancy pay due to him. Unfortunately, he can expect only the legal minimum if the company behaved like this already. Good companies would provide a generous redundancy pay, plus pay for you to have any agreements checked by an employment lawyer of your choice - which means the employee can be sure they are not ripped off, and the employer is sure they cannot be sued for any reason. Obviously if they want him to quit, then the one single thing your relative mustn't do is to quit. Let them pay him. Plenty of time to look for a new job.
Do I have rights to the loan as an asset of the company? You, no. It’s an asset of the company and,as such, will be liquidated by the liquidator for the benefit of the creditors of the company. Only if all creditors are paid in full will a dividend by paid to shareholders- this virtually never happens. The loan contract is still valid and the borrower will have to repay as agreed. If the contract has a repay on demand clause the liquidator will probably trigger it. If it doesn’t, they will sell it for what they can get - depending on the risk profile this could be from 50-85% of face value.
Custom is more important than the law AFAIK there is no legal requirement to provide concessional pricing for any goods or services. Custom dictates that this is more common for services than for goods but, for example, cinema’s often don’t provide concessional pricing for blockbuster movies.