Ian Lim, TSMP Law Corporation’s Head of Employment and Labour, was asked to comment in a Business Times story published on 26 August 2020 on several owed-wages matters arising from Honestbee’s liquidation.

Some former employees of Honestbee, now in liquidation, had their employment contracts transferred to a separate entity, and those employment contracts will not be entitled to any liquidation proceeds of Honestbee.

Ian Lim said: ”Employees have to be careful and should ideally do their own checks on the viability of the new company, for example, whether it has lower or minimal paid-up capital as compared with their current employer.”

As for Honestbee’s own employees, how much priority their claims will be given in liquidation is not straightforward. For one, they would not have priority over any secured creditors with fixed charges. ”(Employees) still rank quite high up the priority chain though, ahead of floating charge creditors, unsecured creditors and shareholders, for example. But employee claims are not 100 per cent protected. In the case of wages, they are protected to the tune of S$13,000 or five months’ salary, whichever is lower,” he said.