Securing Severance and Rental Deposit for Unjustly Treated Teacher at Defunct Training Center

I was recently contacted by a British teacher, who for the sake of confidentiality, I will refer to as Connor. Connor sought my assistance following a recommendation from another expatriate who had previously engaged my services.

Connor had been employed at a training center which, due to its impending closure, had chosen to terminate his employment. The company informed all employees through a virtual meeting that the particular branch where Connor had been working was in the process of being shut down.

Given that we possessed a definitive recording, I was confident in our strong position to pursue severance pay and thus chose to proceed with the case. Connor had been employed at the company for more than two and a half years, which entitled him to a severance package equivalent to three months’ salary.

We advanced to trial, where the training center attempted to attribute fault to Connor, accusing him of frequent unexcused absences and tardiness. Contrary to their claims, Connor had been accompanying his wife to the hospital, as she was in the ninth month of pregnancy. Furthermore, the school failed to furnish any proof of his alleged absenteeism, allowing us to effortlessly dismiss their accusations.

Subsequently, the training center shifted the blame to governmental factors, claiming that the pandemic and related policies had adversely impacted their operations, leading to cash flow disruptions. They attributed the financial difficulties to these external circumstances and presented a plethora of irrelevant documentation purported to support their stance. We were able to quickly invalidate these unfounded arguments, dismissing them with little effort.

Obviously, it was the training center’s bad management that had caused such failure, not Connor’s mistake, so the arbitration committee ruled in our favour and gave us the 3 months severance pay, totalling 65808 Yuan.

In addition to the severance pay, we triumphed in securing the return of Connor’s rental deposit of 2,000 Yuan. Three years prior, the training center had taken this amount as a security deposit for his apartment, and upon his departure, they withheld the funds without any legitimate justification. Such actions are, in fact, unlawful. Companies are prohibited from collecting any kind of deposit from employees, just as they are forbidden from retaining an employee’s work permit, passport, and certificates.