I am an expat and was hired to lead international expansion and business for a Japanese company. The first stop in the expansion was my home country and the company I represent (rather represented) was already in talks with a domestic company there to get into an OEM agreement to manufacture our product for the local market. They had even signed an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) prior to my joining the business 2 months ago.
Soon after joining, I realized all this was done and facilitated without any legal counsel and the clauses mentioned were blatantly exploitative. I also had the opportunity to meet these folks in person and it just reinforced the fact that these people would not have been the best fit for us. They even had a very sketchy history involving corruption. All my attempts to convince the chairman to call this off was met with resistance. Apparently, he valued “Trust” more than anything. It is to keep in mind that both companies are traditional multi-generarional family run businesses. I have been in the industry for a few years in my home country and I know how cut-throat the market is and how important it is to safe guard your interests when doing businesses with others.
Anyhoo, I got a legal team involved (with the approval of the chairman) who combed the fine print and highlighted several problematic clauses which would hinder us in the long term. The OEM company initially agreed to meet our legal counsel but pulled out at the last minute and cried offence for having insulted them by involving a legal team. For some strange reason the chairman felt obligated to do business with them regardless of their history and all the other unfavourable aspects I had mentioned to him earlier. And as absurd as this sounds, this blew up and the OEM operators successfully managed to paint me the villain to an otherwise “successful partnership”. I am pretty sure they were explicit that for this partnership to work I must be ousted.
On Monday, I was called to the chairman’s office and he went on a tirade about how I do not know to respect people (funny thing because despite me being diplomatic I vividly remember the other folks flipping out over the very valid questions I had), he has no idea what to do with me and doesn’t have any role in his organization for me going forward. I asked him explicitly what he would like me to do. He said he doesn’t know, I gave him a few suggestions but they were all countered with some lame excuses. As a consolation (I believe) he said he could try to offer me a part-time job at his organization in some labour intensive role (?). When I followed up his reluctance for the suggestions I’d given him, to ask him what is it that he wants because it seems like he is politely asking me to leave cause it will make it easier for him. He said “Yes, it will make it easier but what will you do? Do you have any jobs you can move on to?” It seemed amply clear that he was indirectly asking me to resign. He also said take 2-3 days to think over what you want to do and I was free to go home now if I wanted to.
When I got back to him on Wednesday, he said he had already made an announcement about my departure from the organization and that I can’t backtrack on MY decision to leave the company (he conveniently made it sound like it was my idea to leave). The only thing I said an explicit “No” to was the labour intensive role. I politely reminded him asking me to take 2-3 days to consider what I would like to do. All this was done on text so I have a record of it (I have not sent any email thus far and there is no written record of the previous conversation). Subsequently, I explictly tell him I want to continue in the organization but he states he doesn’t have any job for me per se and I am better off elsewhere. I politely ask him for severance to which he said he can offer me about 2 months pay to which I countered with a 6 month severance. He said he will talk to his tax consultant and the social insurance folks and get back to me.
What are my options if things go further south from here? This was frankly a dream job but I have been so burnt out in just a span of 2 months that I don’t want it. I just want what I am rightly owed and I think I should get and leave.
14 comments
To boil it down:
You were hired to facilitate international expansion, your first deal did not go well due to interference from your boss, boss is now illegally firing you. I’m going to assume that there’s no demonstrable proof that you were properly terminated for cause.
You don’t mention if you were a contract hire or a seishain hire.
If you were a contract hire, they basically owe you for the remainder of the contract.
If you were a seishain hire, they can’t fire you for this – and they can’t substantially alter your job function.
Your first stop is the [labour bureau](https://www.check-roudou.mhlw.go.jp/soudan/foreigner_eng.html).
Wishing good outcome for you but a piece of advice for you: business success and deals aren’t done the way you/we learn about them in the MBA (took me long to figure this out)
I’m going to be a bit harsh and say… legalities aside… you have no idea what you’re doing.
I mean, you must have been very good at your previous job in your home country, but you totally misread how your new company works, how business partnerships at these companies are actually formed (with a handshake, not a legal team), and what it is you actually needed to do at your new position.
Nevertheless:
>I politely ask him for severance to which he said he can offer me about 2 months pay to which I countered with a 6 month severance.
This is indeed your best recourse. You’re done with this company and they are done with you. Get as long of a severance as possible and move on. Six months seems reasonable to me.
I agree with ppl below. They had a way to do a business and you wanted to do it by the book/foreign way. It seams like one fishy company do stuff with another fishy company. But it was their fault to hire someone who wont understand their mood. Try to get 6 month payment while looking for a new job.
To be honest, this was never going to end well when you decided to go over the chairman’s head several times. You were hired to enable this deal, not decide if it’s a good idea or not. You came off as insubordinate and smug, and you have burned a bridge.
That doesn’t mean, however, they can fire you illegally if you are a full-time employee. The rule of thumb is one month per year of service with a 3 month minimum give or take. As far as I know they are within their rights to reassign you to manual labor and / or to another branch in Japan but are not allowed to cut your pay.
Many lawyers will have a consultation with you for a small fee or even free if you want to go down that route just be aware you can’t work during a lawsuit and you might run into visa trouble as they often take well over a year to resolve.
The first four paragraphs sounded exactly like my previous company, word to word. That company baited a few experienced execs, had them move overseas. The newly hired execs only found out that there wasn’t much of a viable international operations going on as far as they claimed to exist. The multiple international companies involved were all daydreaming about an upcoming partnership, but in reality they never had a real solid written deal.
MoU can’t be trusted. Most MoUs between two companies, whether HQ, OEM, exclusive distributors, dealers, contractors and whatnot, is designed to circumvent legal responsibility. In a lot of jurisdictions it is just as flimsy as a memo. I don’t know what it fully entails in a Japanese business but you should get your hands on the MoU copy, if you want to argue with them further for your own benefit. Depending on what your employment contract says, I think you can consider the option of arguing that the LACK of their funding or existing operations means the companies have construed an employment agreement, offered to you, that is not reflective of what they really do.
You should accept the 2 months pay and 6 months severance. I wonder what else would you expect from the labor board or an employment lawyer? It just doesn’t sound like a dream job anymore. The OEM and the chairman you are dealing with are very immature. You might have taken a bullet but consider you dodged a bomb.
The real answer to this is to talk to a lawyer. None of us know what your contract contained nor exactly why you’re being dismissed, so none of us can actually talk to you about the legality of this.
Talk to an employment lawyer. Share with them the relevant documents and get their opinion. If you don’t like it, talk to a second lawyer too. Ignore everything you read on reddit.
With that out of the way, I’m curious, was there a probationary period? Probationary periods aren’t that unusual (usually 3 months), and if you are in a probationary period, it’s much easier to justify dismissal, so the dismissal would likely be lawful. It still requires sufficient notice / pay though (usually a minimum of 30 days).
Even without a probationary period, it does sound like there’s plenty of cause for dismissal, which would only entitle you to 30 days of pay.
Did you not have any experience working in Japan before?
It sounds to me that you were thrown into a situation you couldn’t read and understand and reacted in an unexpected way so were seen more as causing interference than helping.
This isn’t a defense of their practices, simply an explanation of why there was a disconnect in expectations and why you were unable to succeed.
Okay, so I looked at your profile and you’re from India. The idea of an Indian company crying foul at the involvement of lawyers had me laughing out loud for a while. They got caught doing something they knew they shouldn’t be doing, and then decided to play the “I’m outraged” card. You and I both know that this in “Indian Negotiating Position #3”. The correct response here is to smile politely and just say, “I know you had your legal team look over this. Any clever businessman like yourself would.”
And this is precisely why you were bought onto this team. Your Japanese CEO is from a different culture. They don’t get it. They don’t understand the culture of the partner they’re getting into bed with, and if your CEO continues like this you’d better leave him a nice big bottle of lube because to be perfectly blunt he’s going to need it.
All the people commenting here that you did something wrong are kindof missing the point. Sure, you didn’t phrase this to suit Japanese sensibilities, but the company hired you in no small part for your cultural expertise on the country they’re going to try and do business with. If they wanted someone with none of that then they would have hired a Japanese person.
So my advice here is to go back to your CEO, sit them down, and have a chat. Ask them why they hired you. Point out their wisdom in hiring someone from the target culture. Then give your cultural expertise, that (a) the other company 100% did run this past their lawyers and they know what they’re doing, and (b) that this “offence” isn’t sincere, it’s a negotiating ploy, and they’ve almost certainly already followed up with a demand for some additional concessions as part of this ploy. Watch your CEO, you’ll see the confirmation right there in their eyes.
The praise the CEO’s wisdom again. Stroke the old windbag’s ego, and remind them that they were wise indeed to bring you onto the team, and that despite this “little misunderstanding” you’re happy to continue on the team and to handle these “difficult foreigners” who are almost certainly causing him “unnecessary stress”, and that if he’ll just give you a free hand to negotiate you can get him a much better deal.
If the CEO bites then you’ve got a free hand and you can haggle like you’re at the corner store, and deliver a better MoU, one that won’t box your company in with business-limiting restrictions in the future.
If your CEO disagrees or pushes back then respectfully point out that there seems to have been a “miscommunication” regarding the company’s expectations of you. You thought that they hired you to provide cultural context and an understanding of the legal framework they would be operating in. They obviously wanted something else, although you’re not sure what that is. Offer to part on friendly terms without further stress or bother for <insert your terms here>.
… and if he tries to dicker over the terms then for the crowning irony you could always pretend outrage that he’s consulted outside people like the tax consultant and social insurance people about what should have been a private misunderstanding between you and him, and that by consulting other people about this he has embarassed your publicly. Maybe then he’ll begin to grasp that this is absolutely standard Indian bargaining, and means precisely nothing other than, “Give me a better offer”.
Lawyer up. Reddit not the place for this.
not direct advice but add “48 laws of power” to your reading list while looking for a new job
I know a lot about this.
Basically if you’re a full time employee and you both explicitly and implicitly did not agree to leaving your role, you are (going by the rest of the details of your description) 100% protected by Japanese labor law. You cannot be fired – you can only agree to leave.
Regarding your severance, I would not settle for anything less than 6 months and tbh you could like get a year. There is a reason for this that I don’t want to mention publicly but if you’re interested in why feel free to DM me.
> I have been in the industry for **a few years** in my home country
Bolding mine.
> I got a legal team involved
How did you get ‘a legal team’ involved? Your company’s legal team? Outside counsel?
There is nothing – and I mean, NOTHING – in your post to suggest you would be the right person to “lead the international expansion and business for a Japanese company”. You are laughably naive at best, and I’d bet a significant amount of money you’re leaving a fair bit of the story untold.
If you were only on the job two months, you’re almost certainly still in any probation period, which means they can pretty much let you go at will.
They offered you a different full-time position. You turned it down. Take the two months, because there is ZERO justification to claim six months, and they can rescind the two month offer as well.
You are an economic migrant you mean