Honestbee owes $1m in unpaid salaries, while key investor steps down from board

A total of 217 former employees of online food and grocery delivery startup Honestbee are owed about US$1 million in unpaid salary, said Honestbee CEO Ong Lay Ann in a court affidavit filed Friday, The Straits Times reported.

Photo credit: Honestbee

According to the Ministry of Manpower, 44 of the total former employees have filed claims with the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management.

In addition, Brian Koo, a key investor in the Singapore-based startup and former chairman and interim CEO, has resigned from the company’s board, according to the report.

Koo became the interim CEO at Honestbee following the resignation of former CEO Joel Sng, who was “taking full accountability as CEO for the state of the company,” an Honestbee exec told Tech in Asia at the time.

Earlier, it was reported that the firm had plans to lay off about 10% of its headcount, which translates to about 100 employees. The company, however, denied that there had been delays in paying its staff.

Around the same time, Honestbee also halted its operations in Hong Kong and Indonesia, as well as its food delivery service in Thailand. It has also temporarily suspended its services in Japan and the Philippines.

See also: Layoffs and resignations at Honestbee as regional expansion hits a snag

Now, the embattled startup has filed an application with Singapore’s High Court to start a court-supervised restructuring process and to seek a moratorium against enforcement actions and legal proceedings.

An affidavit filed by the company previously revealed that Honestbee has received demands from creditors claiming around US$4.3 million and owes at least US$209 million to its largest creditors.

The court document also showed that the company has been served with four statutory demands for a total of about US$681,000 since July 15 and 34 letters of demand for roughly US$3.7 million.

According to letters attached to the affidavit, Koo has expressed interest in investing up to US$10 million in Honestbee.