Company withdrawing job offer employment contracts exchanged

[bestinshow]

I own a share in a small recruitment company, and after a very lengthy recruitment process, good references etc a candidate of ours signed a contract, agreed a start date etc only to have the company withdraw the offer as it decided not to recruit the position - this is a week before he was due to start and he'd already left his previous job. They've offered him a one-off payment of about 10% of his salary.

The company have refused to pay the invoice " because he didn't start " !

This is a major multinational company we're talking about, not two blokes in a shed.

Any thoughts ? I know that this will turn into a contractual, legal issue, just thought I'd throw it out there.

Thanks

[hajaba123]

Refused to pay your invoice I presume you mean?

2 subsequent questions to be considered, what do you T&Cs say? and do you ever want to do business with them again?

This will help determine your course of action

[bestinshow]

Thanks Gary, our T+Cs say invoice triggered on contract exchange.

Not bothered about working with them again

[hajaba123]

In that case I guess it's fighty fighty time!

Good luck

[mondeoman]

Good luck with that...

Normally payment is due on start date. Put it like this, if the candidate had signed the contract then not started, would you refund the fee?

[bestinshow]

If the candidate hadn't started of his own will, we would of course refund the fee.

The fact here is that the company has decided not to start him. We've even offered to transfer it onto another position, which they don't want to do.

[edc]

Having worked both sides, if your relationship is good enough I would seek to trade off for exclusivity on 1 or more future roles.

[bestinshow]

edc said:

Having worked both sides, if your relationship is good enough I would seek to trade off for exclusivity on 1 or more future roles.

They have suggested that, but have said it would be at least 12 months before this happens, which smells to me of dangling carrots to make us go away.