Twitter is currently facing legal action in multiple countries due to alleged non-payment of office rent and severance to former employees. In a recent development, an Australian company named Facilitate is seeking over A$1 million for services provided at Twitter’s offices in London, Dublin, Sydney, and Singapore following Elon Musk’s takeover. The lawsuit claims that Twitter has failed to fulfill its financial obligations for office fitouts in these locations.
The corporation known as Facilitate has submitted a lawsuit in a California court, accusing Twitter of ceasing payment for services provided in four different locations. Facilitate, a company based in Sydney, asserts that it had been engaged by Twitter since 2015 to assist in the development of office spaces in various international locations, and that Twitter had previously honored its financial obligations by settling the invoices. However, a shift occurred in October when Elon Musk assumed control of Twitter.
According to documents filed with the court, Facilitate has claimed that Elon Musk’s decisions regarding content moderation on Twitter, including the banning of certain accounts and the reinstatement of influential individuals such as former president Donald Trump, had a detrimental impact on the company, leading to an immediate financial crisis. Facilitate alleges that in response, Twitter implemented severe cost-cutting measures, resulting in a situation where the company had to resort to legal action to receive payment. Facilitate further states that Twitter stopped paying rent for some of its offices, ceased payments to several vendors whose services it continued to use, canceled contracts, and failed to fulfill its financial obligations to various individuals.
According to the company, Twitter has failed to make payment for the services provided to them between early 2022 and early 2023. These services included sensor installations in London and Dublin, as well as a complete office fit-out construction in Singapore. When Twitter decided to close its operations in Australia, Facilitate was responsible for decommissioning and storing its office contents. The total amount owed by Twitter for these works exceeds $1.05 million, which the company claims was supposed to be paid within 60 days of receiving the invoice as per the contractual agreement.
After the acquisition, Facilitate communicated with its contacts at Twitter regarding the outstanding invoices. However, Twitter did not indicate any dispute regarding the amounts owed or provide any justification for non-payment, according to the documents filed in court.
In a separate legal matter, Twitter is facing a lawsuit for allegedly refusing to proceed with nearly 900 arbitration cases filed by former employees who were either laid off or resigned after Elon Musk assumed control of the company. In this case, Twitter has reportedly prevented the progress of at least 891 cases by not paying the initial arbitration fees.
