QLD Business Partner Drawing Unauthorised Wages - What to Do?

[Tripe]

if he has authority over bank accounts , he can move money around as he likes, subject to any agreements with his brother or withdrawal limits etc. The guy has 50% of the company.

In this example above, the best thing to do is treat the withdrawal as a director dividend and pay other directors (brother) the same amount, this way there should be negligible malice between family members, their is no super liability and the guy has cash while he is off sick.

If the other Brother does not like it, it may be time to buy him out.

 

[Rod]

Depends in the personal relationship between the brothers as to the best course of action.

From a pure legal perspective the brother appropriating company assets can be taken to court for the recovery of the money.

 

[Donnaspecter]

Thanks Rod, he's emailed his brother some details we've found on ASIC's about Directors responsibilities and said if it happens again that he will have to take legal action. We've also decided that it's in the working brothers best interest to get legal advise and to get an agreement in place. So far this year the "non-working" brother has taken 4 weeks off and every time he's drawn a full wage whereas his brother has been working without any time off this entire year and drawing the same wage. At times when he was working weekends and overtime I've paid the working brother a bit more and when the other brother found out about me paying his brother more he's also taken the company bank card and withdrew the extra cash for himself. So yes it's getting to a stage now where he's just doing as he pleases and every time I stand up to him I get shouted at and told in no uncertain terms that he's the company owner and he will do what he wants and will not take any orders or advise from his employee. Who by the way is the office manager. I run the company and I do all the finances so obviously I'm responsible for all the BAS and the accounts and I'm the one having to find money to pay our employees when things are not going well. We're running a very seasonal company so in rainy season we dont have much work and we're really busy before holiday seasons but very quiet in between so its really important for us to have money set aside for our employee's super and for BAS and for the quiet months. Also we deal with Body Corporates so when we submit an invoice it can take up to 60 days for them to pay it because they wait for the next meeting to approve the invoice for payment and then we have to wait for the payruns before it gets paid. So I'm very disciplined about putting money away and what is the use if the one partner thinks it's his personal right and savings???

Any suggestions with a Gold Coast based business lawyer that can assist or will the accountant be able to help us with an agreement too?