Is it illegal to pay someone to hire me? How about receiving money in exchange for hiring someone? Is it illegal to pay someone to hire me? How about receiving money in exchange for hiring someone? Does this fall under criminal charges, and would it be considered bribery? In this hypothetical situation, this occurs in a private company. For example, suppose I pay someone to hire my son in their engineering firm. Are there any U.S. laws that would prevent me from doing so? To the best of my knowledge, only New York explicitly prohibits this type of action, which would be considered commercial bribery, but I'm not entirely sure.
These are both bribery Bribery is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. The crime exists in the common law even if it is not codified by statute in a particular jurisdiction. If the person you pay to hire your son is under a legal duty to the employer (e.g. is an employee or agent) then what you are both engaging in is bribery. However, if the person you pay is the employer (i.e. if the "engineering firm" is a company then the payment is made to that company) then the payment is not bribery. However, if the payment is made by or behalf of an employee (as it almost certainly is) then it is likely (almost certain) that the payment breaches employment law because, broadly speaking, employers are not entitled to payment from employees - the money has to flow the other way.
If you want to protect yourself or any property interests you may have in this circumstance you have to talk to a lawyer. You cannot get (or trust) legal advice from the internet. I will, however, make the following personal observations: I only provide a W-9 to people who are paying me money, and who request it as a condition of paying me. I don't know of a legal requirement to supply it after the fact. However, not providing it to someone who did pay you more than $600 in a tax year could certainly make it difficult for them to comply with their tax filing obligations. I do not sign any agreements, assignments, or contracts, without what I consider to be fair consideration. E.g., if on leaving a job (as has happened) I am asked by a former employer to sign something that I am not already obligated to sign due to some prior contract, then I negotiate what is commonly called a "severance package." They pay me and/or extend benefits, and I sign something that limits their liability.
Under United States law, copyright is normally held by the creator of a work. There is one major exception to this rule: the "work for hire." If something is considered a "work for hire" under the copyright statutes, the copyright is held by the employer. Whether something qualifies as a work for hire is a complex analysis: here is a Copyright Office circular covering some of the basics. To be clear, I'm not giving an opinion (and I don't have enough information to give an opinion) on whether any specific works you or your fiance may create or commission qualify as "works for hire." It's a narrower test than you probably think it is. If the work is not a work for hire, the copyright holder owns the copyright, and anyone else can use it only with a license from the copyright holder. A license can be implied by the parties' behavior and communications--but it shouldn't be. If you're in a situation where you need to know, for example: That you are allowed to use the artwork forever, and the artist can't ask you to stop later; That you are allowed to change the artwork if you need to, even a simple change like cropping or adding a filter or text; or That, if your product is successful, the artist won't be able to sell another license to someone else to compete with you; then you need a written contract spelling out who owns the copyright and what the rights of the other party are. A lawyer can draw up a simple, re-usable form contract for you cheaply that will prevent the problems you're worried about. Remember: even if this is a work-for-hire situation, if you need to prove that down the road, it may require a trial, or at least preliminary motion practice, to do so. That's a lot more expensive than getting your ducks in a row now will be. tl;dr: Get a lawyer. If you're in a major city, there may be a local arts law organization that will provide you with free help for a simple job like this one. (Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts operate in several East Coast cities, and I know many top commercial lawyers who do pro bono for them).
Such clauses are called "copyright assignment", "invention assignment", and/or "works for hire" clauses, partly depending on the clause's intent and wording. They're pretty common in employment contracts for software development and some creative positions. Frankly, the clauses don't actually do much, at least in the US -- copyright law already recognizes the concept of works made for hire (which belong to the employer), and claims too far beyond that are often rejected if they aren't obviously related to company business. With that said, your hypothetical programmer's painting is safe unless it depicts, say, the contents of an email from the CEO. :) Even if the clause technically entitles the employer to claim ownership, the employer has no legitimate interest in doing so. Likewise, that app created outside work is safe as long as it is created using no company resources and is unrelated to the employer's business. If the app is obviously related, that's where things get hairy.
No Any conduct that demands someone does something unlawfully is unlawful. Taxes are laws and regulations. Not paying the taxes is unlawful, especially under 26 USC 7201. So the shareholders are not only demanding the company to break laws, they aid and abett such behavior, making them also liable together with the company as there is 18 USC 2: (a) Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal. (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal. It could also be inciting to violate laws. It is not a shareholder's right to ask for someone to break the law.
Assuming that the above can be established by admissible evidence, that sounds like a case for first degree murder, and probably various other crimes as well. In some jurisdictions there is a specific crime of &quot;Murder for hire&quot; which might also apply if available on the jurisdiction where this occurred. A comment mentions a possible insanity defense. That is going to depend on detailed facts not included in the question, but might be possible.
From your account, you seem to have entered into a verbal contract for this extra work to be done without agreeing a price. According to this article, Canadian courts will assume that a contract contains &quot;implied&quot; terms &quot;on the basis of the presumed intentions of the parties where necessary to give business efficacy to the contract&quot;. To put that in English, these are terms that must be there because otherwise the story wouldn't make sense. In this case the implied term is that the lawyer will be paid a reasonable amount for his work, as it would be unreasonable to expect him to do this for free. Lawyers generally bill by the hour, so a reasonable amount would be the time he spent multiplied by his usual hourly fee. If that is what he has billed you, then I'm afraid you owe him the money.
Given that the purpose of the bonus is to incentivize you to stay, and you are willing to do that, I see no reason why you shouldn't keep the signing bonus if you are fired. While this is not totally without ambiguity, it is at least a fair reading of the statement that a pay back applies only to a voluntary departure, and ambiguities are generally interpreted against the drafter. Also, keeping the signing bonus compensates you for having to start up at a new job only to have it promptly dissipate.