Lai See | RMJM hit with winding up order for non-payment of salary

The Hong Kong operation of troubled architectural firm RMJM, once one of the world's largest practices, has been issued with a winding up petition by a former employee who is claiming almost HK$335,000 in unpaid pay.

The petition was filed last month in the Court of First Instance by former marketing director Liliana Silva who left the company in August after working for the company for 11 months. The petition says that RMJM breached a Labour Tribunal agreement to pay Silva HK$334,986.18 in three monthly instalments. The company paid her nothing.

Having missed the first payment, this triggered a condition of the Labour Tribunal agreement which said it should pay the entire amount. RMJM has failed to meet this condition and the petition claims because RMJM is unable to pay it should be wound up. A court hearing has been scheduled for January 22. Silva told Lai See that once it had been gazetted she expected five of her former colleagues to join the petition.

She said that she had been contacted by the company in late November saying RMJM would try to pay her before the January court hearing, but she has heard nothing further. A number of former employees have not been paid by RMJM despite successful Labour Tribunal cases.

In its glory days RMJM was responsible for a string of high-profile designs including the New Scottish Parliament Building, the National Convention Centre, Beijing, Huawei's Research and Development Park, Nanjing, and The Gate of the Orient, Suzhou. Trouble at RMJM's Hong Kong operations began to surface in 2010 and culminated in early 2011 when the firm's then principal architect, Catherine Siu, was suspended and subsequently left the company, after firing off an e-mail highly critical of the way the company was run, to the company's chief executive Peter Morrison and circulating it to all staff. She accused Morrison of "stripping out all the cash" from the Hong Kong office, making it difficult to pay staff and creditors.

RMJM's operations over the past few years have been punctuated by claims for unpaid wages, demands from creditors and the departures of leading designers. The Hong Kong office, once a buoyant practice has been reduced to a staff of 15. Nobody answered the company's listed phone number and managing director for Asia, Nick Haston, did not respond to Lai See's e-mail or phone call.