AI Legalese Decoder: Your Key to Understanding the Implications of Working Abroad Without Company Permission
- May 20, 2024
- Posted by: legaleseblogger
- Category: Related News
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# Situation Overview
I have been working abroad without my company’s permission for the past 9 months, moving around Southeast Asia and hopping countries every 3 months or whenever my tourist visa expires. Recently, I received an email from IT stating that they are aware of my actions and I have a formal HR meeting scheduled.
# Company and Job Details
The company I work for is a billion-dollar US fortune 500 company in the Finance industry. I hold a low-level position as a software engineer, primarily working on back-end code without access to customer data. I have only had production access to live servers a few times and do not have access to the database. Despite successfully completing my work, I now fear the consequences of my unauthorized actions.
# Fear of Legal Ramifications
I am now facing the possibility of being fired and potentially sued for causing the company to incur massive fines due to not having a business entity in the countries where I worked. This situation leaves me worried about not only losing my job but also facing financial ruin if legal action is taken against me.
# Seeking Guidance and Advice
In light of this crisis, I am seeking guidance on the likelihood of being sued and the potential financial consequences I may face. Additionally, I wonder what the best course of action for me to take during the upcoming HR meeting is. Should I be completely transparent about the duration of time spent abroad and the countries visited?
# Use of AI Legalese Decoder for Assistance
In this situation, AI Legalese Decoder can be an invaluable tool in helping navigate the legal complexities involved. By utilizing this tool, I can receive clear and concise explanations of the legal implications of my actions. This can aid me in understanding the potential risks and consequences I may face, as well as guide me in determining the best approach to take moving forward. With the assistance of AI Legalese Decoder, I can better prepare for the HR meeting and make informed decisions to mitigate the impact of my actions.
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Original Content:
The legal profession is known for its use of complex language and terminology that can be difficult for the average person to understand. This can make it challenging for individuals to navigate the legal system and understand their rights and obligations. AI Legalese Decoder is a tool that can help simplify legal documents and translate them into plain language that is easier for non-lawyers to comprehend. By using this tool, individuals can better understand the legal documents they encounter and make more informed decisions about their legal rights and responsibilities.
Rewritten Content:
## The Importance of Simplifying Legal Language for Improved Understanding
The legal profession is renowned for its utilization of intricate language and terminologies that often pose challenges for the everyday person to grasp. This complexity can create obstacles for individuals trying to navigate the legal system and comprehend their rights and responsibilities. Consequently, there is a growing need for tools that can simplify legal documents and make them more accessible to non-lawyers. One such solution is the AI Legalese Decoder, an innovative tool designed to translate complex legal texts into plain language.
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****** just grabbed a
At the least you’ve probably violated a company policy, you will almost certainly have breached your organisations information security policy as well.
You might have also caused your organisation to breach it’s contractual obligation with it’s own clients.
You could also have caused some tax issues for yourself and potentially your company.
I have a fair bit of experience investigating and following up issues like this, I would guess that you’re about to lose your job.
I’ve worked on a few cases like this at my company in an HR capacity. As others have said, tax liability is a tricky area, and rules vary from country to country. We had a couple of cases where people moved overseas without telling us during the pandemic working from home period, and one ended up costing us the best part of a quarter of a million to resolve thanks to a load of fines for not having a legal entity in the country, not paying employer contributions, etc etc. You will not be surprised to learn that that employee no longer has a job.
Your contract of employment is likely to include details on the location of the job, and internal policies will certainly require you to declare something like leaving the country. So at the very least you’re looking at misconduct. Whether they will try to claw back any costs from you will depend on the contractual and legal position. I work in the public sector, so we couldn’t pursue it very far. It may well be different in your case.
I would say they are very likely going to fire you but unlikely to sue you. Depending on the company they are more likely to try to sweep this under the rug and quietly get rid of you than deal with the massive legal headaches you might have caused them! If they have also realised this then I would say you might even have some negotiating power here.
Prewrite a letter of resignation, short and simple without giving reasons. Ask them if they would like your resignation letter in exchange for a positive reference letter considering your past performance reviews. This is likely the quickest and cheapest way out for them so they may jump at it.
Edit: thread was locked and I couldn’t reply to your comment so just going to edit this to say: bring the letter with you to the meeting but see what they say first in case they are only going to reprimand you!
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An element would depend on the software being developed – if it’s in any way controlled under export control regulations, you may have been technically “exporting” technology without an appropriate license, especially if any technology is of US origin.
You also have the risk of breaching the cyber security rules of your company, especially if not using private WiFi and a VPN. Then there’s the risk of exposing confidential business information to external sources, especially if using public WiFi connections.
Throw in that you’ve also been working outside the terms of your contract, and not sought permission to take company equipment abroad for ‘non-work’ purposes (I.e., going on your travels instead of a legit work trip), you may be without a job very soon.
NAL.
A lot has already been covered. I think to summarise, likely fired, unlikely sued.
The only thing I’d add, and this is unlikely, but worth considering.
You say your company is in the “finance industry”. If it is regulated, potentially a compliance breach for your company which may or may not need to be reported to the regulator, which could in the absolute worst case scenario lead to a fine for your company or other regulatory action. Little chance that this would have implications on you specifically though, but certainly more grounds for your dismissal if it is the case.
I say unlikely, because I assume you’re not providing regulated services, and I expect you would probably have heard from compliance by now if it was a breach or potential breach.
Don’t lie about what you’ve been up to. They very likely already know exactly what you’ve been doing and where from.
> Should I be totally up front and honest about the length of time and countries I’ve visited.
Yes. They probably already know anyway and in any event adding more dishonesty to this situation will not help you, however tempting it might be.
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The main reason employers don’t like their employees working abroad is that it can make them liable for foreign social security contributions. For example, if you were to work more than half a year in Switzerland, your employer would need to pay a whole array of social security contributions.
HR probably wants to know how long you were and where. There’s a likelihood they may use it as a pretext to fire you, but I don’t really think there’s any basis for them to sue you.
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You may need to check which countries you were in, and when, and refer to this page though I wonder how this pans out being that your company wasn’t aware?
[Employees working abroad – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/paying-employees-working-abroad)
Depending on countries visited and the industry you work in, you could well have also broken export licenses. I know I’m forbidden by law to take my work laptop out of the country, regardless of whether I use it abroad.
There’s also big implications potentially for their intellectual property and more if you were working from any countries with us sanctions.
They are annoyed that you were working in a region that might have different employment law and that they could be breaking the law there. They also might now owe tax in those countries.
They will probably get you to sign an NDA.
Depends if they think this counts as fraud but they could hit you with CIFAS seeing as you work in finance which will make things difficult for you.
Honestly the amazing thing here is that you were able to install a vpn, your IT team should be fired too.
You’re almost definitely getting sacked, but unless the data you’re working with is important from a sovereignty perspective, you’re very unlikely to be sued.
There might be tax implications. I asked my company to work from our office in another country for a couple of weeks cos I didn’t want to spend my A/L. My company is UK based and I live in London. I was immediately told that tax implications could kick in and my UK company could be fined heavily. It wasn’t just tax, there were other charges too, and it would have amounted to thousands of ££. I’m not an exec or anything like that. I had to take my leave cos it would have caused a lot of ripples.
Do you even have the permit to work where you are?
At a minimum GDPR breach is going to be a nightmare for your company as presumably a lot of the data you’ve accessed will only be available for use in the UK. Can I just ask why on earth you thought you’d just go ahead and do this without asking 😂 I mean I understand living your life etc.. But surely you should have asked the question?
Surprised no one has chipped in with the obligatory you’ve worked there for less than 2 years therefore employee rights have not kicked in so they can fire you without any explanation.
They’ll already have your IPs for the last 6 months anyway and have probably found all the different countries … no point lying.
Firstly, they aren’t going to sue you for working in another country. Even if they had a clause in your contract saying you can’t, it’d cost them far more money to do so, than they would ever recover. They have nothing to gain (assuming this is the only thing you’ve done wrong)
You’ve been conducting yourself dishonesty and as someone else said, potentially causing them problems by doing so
Im going to take a slightly different approach and point out that from a HR and IT security perspective you haven’t caused any harm or risk.
The nature of VPNs and cloud based IT systems is that they can be accessed anywhere … you’ve not compromised them have you?
HR probably want to know what the hell is going on and pull you up on it.
You’ve worked for the company under 2 years meaning they can fire you with very little risk … I would go in there and make it clear that nothing was malicious and plead a little ignorance, you might get away with it
You don’t do any security related work do you? Because in the work I do, if I took my laptop abroad without clear permission I’d get fired. And even if I did get permission, it would be for a limited time.
One guy I know was allowed to take his laptop, but had to give it to the infosec guys before and after so they knew what he took and could see if he brought any extra surprises home.
Working while u on a tourist visa????
You better not going back to these countries bud
You will probably get fired, especially with under 2 years service but even without this is good grounds for dismissal, but there’s not much basis to sue you. Companies don’t want you doing this because it does expose them to fines/liabilities but AFAIK they still can’t really pass those fines/liabilities on to you, it’s on them to enforce it presumably by firing you.
You could have exposed yourself to tax implications if the SEA nations you’re in ever find out, that and visa violations. Perhaps more worryingly HMRC could be unhappy too; even though you’ve been paying UK taxes there are bilateral treaties in place that require the UK gov to be on top of shit like this.
I’m an IT guy, and can assure you that we see everything. I do audits like this all the time. Be up front and honest, because they already know. Depending on the work they do and who they support, they may be in legal trouble themselves as a company as a result of what you did. I work for the department of defense in the US, and I can tell you a contractor that does this for us will be legally liable. Potential breaches can happen as a result of doing this kind of stuff.
Side note – you’re a software developer. You should know better. I get the desire to want to move around, but there’s a way to do this that doesn’t including messing yourself, your company, and colleagues up. That’s a very selfish thing to do as an IT professional..
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Is it worth pre-emptively resigning? They might fire you before the end of your notice period anyway, but could that make things easier?
Perhaps they’d prefer you to go immediately, with no fuss. Easier for them than firing you.
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My guess is they’ll either reprimand or fire you. Suing would be a waste of resources and potentially be bad publicity.
go through your contract… confirm what it ways about place of work etc.
wait to see what evidence they offer as that you have been working in other countries (play dumb); perhaps suggest that you have a home VPN that may have lead to different IP logs
Get a flight home and suggest that you could be in the office Monday
You are not going to be sued, they would need to show a loss – your going to get fired for breaching the terms of your employment.
EDIT: downvotes for location (just an avenue to peruse before OP mentioned location training), or play dumb – perhaps I should have said “wait for HR to outline the case against you and and address those points”
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