Employees of a technology company who never received any wages have won payout awards at a tribunal.

Project management consultant Dr John Cowin, who has had no salary for five months, secured a payment order against TVG Limited for almost £47,500.

Former colleague Mark Baines, who had turned down a six-figure role to move to the island to take up a senior project leader role at TVG, was awarded just under £30,000.

A third employee, Martin Best, had judgment in his favour for just over £49,000.

They were three of 10 claimants whose cases against TVG Ltd were heard by an employment tribunal this week.

TVG chief executive officer Jason Bourne-Williams did not contest a majority of the claims.

We reported in July that multiple claims had been lodged with the Manx Industrial Relations Service against Douglas-based fintech start-up firm TVG Ltd for the unlawful deduction from pay.

Staff complained that they had not been paid their salary, holiday pay and expenses since the company was launched earlier this year.

Mr Bourne-Williams previously told Isle of Man Newspapers that he intended to meet TVG’s liabilities.

First of the claimants to have his case heard by the tribunal was Dr John Cowin, of Laxey, who said he joined TVG on April 9 this year and was initially based in premises on Cooil Road.

Seeking expedited execution of a payment order against TVG Ltd, he told the tribunal: ’I have received no payment whatsoever for over five months now. The time for reasonableness has now passed. The lack of income over this period has been unduly stressful for myself and my wife.’

Mr Baines, who began work at TVG on March 13, was awarded almost £30,000 for non-payment of three months’ salary and one month’s notice.

He told the Manx Independent: ’We thought we were on the cutting edge of something - we were going to be the next Google. But it unravelled in a matter of weeks. The biggest thing was the stress and anxiety, the not knowing what was going to happen. We have all been traumatised by this.’

employed

Mr Cowin told the tribunal that another employee and two contractors started work there the same day as him, joining seven others who had been at TVG since March 12.

But he said ’alarm bells were ringing from quite an early stage’ after finding out staff who had been at TVG since March had not been paid. His first salary was due at the end of April but that date came and went without payment.

Mr Cowin said he often requested information from Mr Bourne-Williams about when he would be paid but the answers he received were ’vague and lacked firm dates’.

Mr Cowin said a crisis has arisen in relation to rent in early May and the company lost access to the Cooil Road premises. Operations were suspended until May 29 when TVG staff started working out of the offices of Orchard Recruitment for a time.

But from June 13, meetings were only held in coffee shops in Douglas and Castletown and even a pub in Port St Mary.

Asked by one of the tribunal panel if anything tangible was produced by TVG, Mr Cowin replied: ’Yes, there was work produced but not in any particularly usable form because we didn’t have any IT equipment.

’Much of our work was done on whiteboards because we didn’t have PCs to work on, remarkably.’

He added: ’It was at a very early stage. This was a start-up company, notwithstanding it was supposed to be part of a large group.’

Mr Cowin said on June 13, Mr Bourne-Williams indicated via a WhatsApp message that he would be paid that day - but no payment was received.

The next day, pay slips for April were handed out but he said his was calculated incorrectly and again no payment was made.

Anxious to ensure the debt owed to him didn’t escalate further, he handed in his notice in July, with his employment to end on October 25.

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The tribunal awarded him an indicative judgment for £47,469.

Mr Best, who was awarded indicative judgment against the company for more than £49,000, told the tribunal that Mr Bourne-Williams appeared to be something of a ’Walter Mitty’ character.

Written judgments on all 10 claims will follow next week.

TVG Ltd did not receive any funding support from the Department for Enterprise.

Mr Bourne-Williams told Isle of Man Newspapers in July: ’I’ve been apologetic throughout.

’But an apology without money is not much of an apology. If it had been my intention to simply walk away I would have just closed the company down.

’I intend to meet that liability. I have assets that I’m liquidating to meet the liabilities.’