Pending legal action for failing to deliver on a contractual guarantee

[steampowered]

Hi and welcome to CAG, I think you are in the correct place.

 

In a large corporate, it is not the marketing department's decision to start litigation. They'd have to go through management and involve group legal. I doubt the company would bother suing you to be honest, especially if you are an individual with limited assets and given that we are talking about a pretty small sum of money in the context of a large company.

 

What exactly does the contract say? If the contract says you have to refund the money if you don't secure 25 people, that's what you have to do. But if the contract simply says you guarantee 25 attendees, then you are in breach of contract, and the legal remedy is damages for that breach of contract, but the company has to prove what those damages are. I'm not sure how a company could legally prove loss for not having enough people at a networking event.

 

Personally, I would just be up front about it - explain what you have done and why it hasn't worked. If you can salvage the situation, you should probably try to do that. If the situation is not salvageable, then I think you just have to face the music ASAP - so that the person instructing you can mitigate their losses and minimise the amount of internal embarrassment.

 

If you do get asked for repayment then you can make the point that the money has been spent and you are not in a position to repay it. I doubt the suggestion of monthly payments is going to be attractive - this company doesn't sound like a bank and won't have the capacity to monitor monthly payments unless I guess they sell it to a debt collector. This money will be coming out of the department's budget for the year - anything you pay back in the next financial year is not likely to be credited back to their budget so won't matter to the people you are dealing with day-to-day.

[steampowered]

I see - the wording is quite clear that the client is entitled to a pro-rata refund if you don't get 25 attendees.

 

There are two ways to calculate this - either (1) you deduct expenses from the £23.5k and then divide pro-rata, or (2) you divide the £23.5k pro-rata and then deduct expenses.

 

The wording suggests to me that option (2) applies, although nothing to stop you putting forward a calculation based on option (1) and let them raise it if they disagree.

 

Mind you, if you can only get 10 attendees, they may not want to go ahead with the event so it is worth having an open conversation with them.

[steampowered]

Indeed, I have some thinking to do.

 

Another question. Would I be able to include the funds I drew for my living expenses and outgoings within "expenses"?

 

I would have thought the reference to "expenses" would only cover outgoings relating to organising the event. I doubt it would cover personal expenses and living costs.

 

When you say 'withdrew', what does that mean? Were you contracting through a limited company?

[steampowered]

No worries, good luck!