Equity has sent a letter to the Employment Agencies Standards Inspectorate (EASI), calling on the regulatory body to use its powers to ensure Mad Dog 2020 Casting is held accountable for failing to pay money owed to members.
The union had won a claim earlier this year worth over £13,000 on behalf of 39 members. However, the liquidation of Mad Dog now means this claim cannot be enforced and members are unlikely to recoup their money.
In the letter, Equity General Secretary Paul W Fleming asks the Head of the EASI to show how the body “intends to use its powers to ensure that the individuals behind Mad Dog are held accountable for systemic breaches of their statutory obligations and treatment of artists, and so that they cannot continue their behaviour.”
The EASI is responsible for protecting the rights of agency workers and is part of the government Department of Business and Trade. Equity met with the EASI in February to discuss this matter and will have a further meeting with the body later this month.
The letter also points out that the EASI has “several relevant powers in these circumstances, including the power to levy unlimited fines, conduct prosecutions and recommend that the Secretary of State ban individuals from running an agency.”
The letter comes ahead of an online meeting held by the liquidators this Friday (7 March) which will convene the creditors. If you are owed money by Mad Dog, you need to register your debt as a creditor in order to have any prospect of being paid – if you have not received a letter or email from the liquidators, MHA, please contact us at agents@equity.org.uk.
However, members owed money are unsecured creditors. This means that they will only be paid if Mad Dog has money left after preferential creditors, such as HMRC, are paid what is owed to them. We have seen a statement of Mad Dog’s account which show the company has debts significantly outweighing its available assets.
As we understand it, members do not need to attend the online meeting on Friday 7 March to have a chance of recovering their debt. It is a meeting to appoint the liquidators by a vote of creditors and to present Mad Dog's accounts. Accordingly, Equity will not act as a formal proxy for members in the vote at this meeting but we will be present to observe on behalf of members.
The union will continue to do all we can within an unjust legal framework to hold Mad Dog to account. Legislation that protects cavalier business models in every industry may limit our legal options, but will not limit our resolve to do all we can for affected members.
In the letter to the EASI, the union writes: “Freelance work in the performing arts too often means repeatedly chasing payments from agencies who use our members’ earnings to prop up their reckless business practices, with total disregard for their legal obligations. Mad Dog is, unfortunately, just one such example. Experience also shows that individuals running agencies like Mad Dog go on to establish new companies, continuing their recklessness with impunity.”
If you have any questions about this development, please get in touch.
Contact usFull text of letter
RE: Liquidation of Mad Dog
I am writing to you following the recent news that Mad Dog Casting Ltd is appointing liquidators to wind up the company. As you will know, Mad Dog is a major casting agency for supporting artists, through which hundreds of Equity members have found work. It enters liquidation owing members thousands of pounds, much of which may never be paid.
For the past few years, our members have consistently reported to us that Mad Dog has failed to pay them for work. Members have waited months and even years for payments, many of which never came. Equity took and won a claim, worth over £13,000, for 39 members this year; the liquidation means it is very unlikely that we can enforce it.
Freelance work in the performing arts too often means repeatedly chasing payments from agencies who use our members’ earnings to prop up their reckless business practices, with total disregard for their legal obligations. Mad Dog is, unfortunately, just one such example.
Experience also shows that individuals running agencies like Mad Dog go on to establish new companies, continuing their recklessness with impunity.
The EASI has several relevant powers in these circumstances, including the power to levy unlimited fines, conduct prosecutions and recommend that the Secretary of State ban individuals from running an agency.
Equity would like to ask, then, how the EASI intends to use its powers to ensure that the individuals behind Mad Dog are held accountable for systematic breaches of their statutory obligations and treatment of artists, and so that they cannot continue their behaviour.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Paul W Fleming
GENERAL SECRETARY
