On keeping one's promises

[emperor]

Why is it OK to consider changing the law to allow the government to renege on promises it made to civil servants, when we're not considering doing similar to allow us to renege on, say, PFI deals?

Comments

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

It is, in that it destroys the company. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's happened to me, too.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Also doesn't mean that those taking the decision to resort to insolvency wind up in the same boat as the staff having to fight for the minimum they are legally entitled to. This is probably not how it is supposed to work, of course.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

No, at least it wasn't how it worked at the company that I worked for which went bust. There was a holding company and a service company and other companies. Assets got transferred between companies, debts got transferred between companies. One company ended up with almost all the debt, the other companies ended up with most of the assets and that one was wound up. Its directors got shafted by the directors of the holding company who didn't reveal all the facts prior to the events. I can't now remember all the details, but it was quite dodgy.

It sort of has a happy ending as some of the shafted directors managed to shaft the dodgiest of the shafting directors, who ended up with an insolvant company in Jersey which he couldn't actually make insolvant without revealing his dodgy dealings; they managed to get out with their sense of revenge satisfied.