Technicolor US Not PAYING international freelancers Urgent!

I decided to make a separate thread for this as immediate action/help in any way is needed on this.
Once Bankruptcy is declared and accepted then liquidation of all assets will occur and those still owed money can only hope for at best that a partial payment is part of the Bankruptcy settlement. But this is highly unlikely.

As @Fab mentioned in the other Technicolor thread. International freelancers are not being paid and have not been paid for a couple months now

Although I was recently back at The Mill NY Nov/early December and January I personally was not affected by this since while I’m currently living in Chile my permanent address/residence and LLC is still in NYC. Also as an NYC resident I was on payroll and not invoicing The Mill.-

I do not know what the next steps would be and what are the legal aid/advocacy groups in California?

@randy any ideas of people you know who might be able to help?
For the Californians @cnoellert @philm @ALan etc etc any thoughts, ideas?

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Thanks Ben for opening this thread.

Copying/Paste the message I wrote in the other page regarding the Mill.

Looks like they’ve been planning this for a few months.

I’ve been working with them remotely on Flame as a foreign contractor since COVID, taking on projects from time to time.

They still haven’t paid me for my last two gigs (end of December ‘24 and early January on a Super Bowl spot / 11 days of work total). Since it was The Mill, I wasn’t overly worried at first—never imagined they’d do this on purpose. I naïvely assumed there were some banking hiccups maybe even because of my bank…

Today, a freelancer working in Korea reached out to me—he told me they owe him 8 weeks of work and have been ghosting his emails when he enquired for payment

My scheduler gave me contacts to email AP (Accounts Payable Supervisor), but as a foreign contractor, I feel like they can easily ignore me.

Any idea what could be done or attempted? They’ll probably cut off emails soon or fire the people I’m trying to contact…

Thanks for any insights!

crazy time…

Note : As a freelancer, working unpaid is painful, but I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like for those who have been there for so long and are now thrown into uncertainty.

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If someone was being paid as a LLC/Corp, you totally fucked. Even if you did receive money from The Mill in the past 90 days, you are fucked. The liquidators are going to come after you and try and get the money back. It happened to me once about 15 years ago. The guy went bankrupt, and the court wanted me to give the money back, because as far as they were concerned, I’m just a corporate vendor, not an individual, and if vendors received money 90 within a company going bankrupt, your fucked. I think I ended up just closing down my corporation, and never responding to the lawyers again.

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Thanks for the insight. I get that this situation is chaotic, but honestly, adding more stress and worst-case scenarios doesn’t really help right now. I haven’t been paid yet for my two gigs, so my focus is just on getting my invoices processed before everything shuts down.

From what I understand, clawbacks usually target bigger corporate vendors or preferential payments, not freelancers just getting paid for regular contract work.

Besides, before these two gigs, I hadn’t worked there for quite some time—well over 90 days ago from now.

Appreciate the heads-up, though—I’ll stay on top of it.

Yeah, but we’re so good at that!

I would plan for the worst. Hope for the best, of course, but plan for the worst. Techniloser isn’t exactly a wholesome and thoughtful entity.

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Yeah, as a Flame Artist, we’re definitely trained to handle stressful situations—but that’s not really the point here.

I didn’t post in this thread to be told I’m “totally fucked” five times. :clown_face:

I know the situation isn’t looking great (very slim chance of retrieving my 11 days of work money), but I was hoping to hear from other Mill contractors who might be in the same boat or someone in this great forum who has an idea that could actually help—whether that’s a key contact at The Mill, a legal suggestion, or any move that could improve my odds.

As for the clawback issue, from what I understand, it mainly applies to large vendors who received substantial payments right before a bankruptcy filing. Since I haven’t been paid yet, and I’m a freelancer, I’d be more worried about getting nothing rather than having liquidators knocking on my door to take money back. Unless a payment was flagged as preferential treatment (which is more about insider deals), the likelihood of a trustee actively pursuing small contractor payments is pretty low. But yes, it’s true. It could happen (luckily it has been over 90 days I haven’t worked with The Mill before they steal my time from me for free)

That being said, I’m still skeptical about the liquidators coming to burn my house, curse my crops, and steal my dog (yes, I work remotely from the countryside).

So, if anyone has a lawyer contact (though I wonder if it’s worth it for $12K) or any other suggestion, please chime in.

Not sure if it’s possible in this forum (but I guess it’s possible), but you can Private message me.

Thanks!

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You might want to talk to an accountant before an attorney -should be less expensive. I’m not sure if you’re in the US, but if you are, you can write off business losses. This sure sounds like a classic example. If it qualifies, that writeoff can offset the tax you owe on revenue from other jobs, so you won’t be up, but you won’t be down as much.

And… taking the loss is also a LOT less painful than dealing with the courts.

I’m really sorry you’re in this situation, and whatever you do, keep notes every step of the way, they might come in handy.

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Hey Josh,

Thanks so much for the suggestion—I really appreciate it. I’m actually based in Europe, so the tax situation might be a bit different, but it’s definitely worth looking into whether there’s a similar option for writing off business losses here. That’s a good point about checking with an accountant before going down the legal route—it does seem like a much less painful (and costly) way to handle things.

I’ll keep detailed notes as you suggested—who knows, it might come in handy down the line.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply, and for the support.

Where are you based? I ask as if you’re based in the UK, I know The Mill wanted people to be within IR35 for any contracts, which actually treats you as an employee, as you have to pay tax and National Insurance through PAYE at the same rate as an employee. It would just mean you may have more rights regarding clawing back any money owed as you would potentially be seen as an employee rather than a contractor.
Of course, if you’re not based in the UK then this won’t apply, I just thought I’d mention it in case it helped.
(IR35 is some messed up rule in the UK to get you to pay more tax as a freelancer. Most people avoid contracts within IR35 like the plague.)

Hey Grant,

Thanks for bringing that up! I’m actually based in France, so IR35 doesn’t apply to me, but it’s interesting to hear how that works in the UK. It sounds like a tricky system for freelancers to navigate.

I appreciate you mentioning it, though—any bit of info helps when dealing with this kind of situation.

Thanks again for taking the time to share!

No problem and good luck with it all, I hope you get what’s owed!

DM sent.

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Nobody in India is gettin paid.

https://www.reddit.com/r/vfx/comments/1iynnpb/technicolor_india_shutdown_leaves_employees_in/

Terrible, criminal… and just more very sad news.

That call transcript(?) was somewhat hard to follow but was pretty upsetting to read.

Hey Ben,

Appreciate you starting this thread and bringing attention to what’s going on. I was a vendor for The Mill and am currently dealing with an outstanding payment issue from work delivered before the shutdown. Definitely a frustrating situation.

I’m looking into the best way forward and exploring options. If anyone else is in a similar position or has insights on next steps, I’d be interested in hearing more.

Thanks again for shedding light on this—hoping we can all find a fair resolution.

Best,

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Sadly I have no idea how to help. Based on some anecdotal evidence, 10,000 people across the globe just lost their job. Hundreds of contractors, vendors, and more won’t be paid for days or weeks of work.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what bankruptcy looks like. An instantaneous evaporation of any and all fucks. And by fucks I mean assets.

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Indeed, a truly messed up situation to say the least. .