Hodlnaut can’t pay salaries, benefits for dismissed employees

Former Hodlnaut employees, who were dismissed in August, were told that the company is “not in a position to make any payment” on their salaries, benefits, or entitlements, according to documents seen by Tech in Asia.

The Singapore-based crypto lender, which recently admitted to losing US$193 million in the collapse of TerraLabs’ UST stablecoin, was placed under interim judicial management (IJM), Singapore’s equivalent of bankruptcy reorganization proceedings, on August 29.

Hodlnaut team / Photo credit: Hodlnaut

The document also told employees that the IJM is seeking legal advice on the payments and would update the former employees “in due course.”

Former employees told Tech in Asia that they still had not received their final salaries.

Hodlnaut laid off 40 people – 80% of its staff – on August 19.

The firm also asked ex-employees to fill out a proof of debt form and “provide supporting documents and calculations used to derive the claimed amount” to recover their wages.

The letter was dated August 29 and signed by Aaron Loh, who, along with Angela Ee – both from Ernst & Young’s Singapore office – were appointed IJMs by the Singapore High Court.

Tech in Asia’s attempts to reach either Loh or Ee have not been successful.

The letter was sent to employees by Wong Partnership, a law firm hired by the IJMs. Wong Partnership also represents the Algorand Foundation, which declared in September that it had a US$35 million exposure to Hodlnaut.

On August 9, Hodlnaut announced that it was ceasing operations after admitting that it had US$317 million in TerraLabs’ Anchor protocol when UST crashed in May. Hodlnaut CEO Juntao Zhu previously denied that the company had any exposure to the collapse.

See also: UST, lies, and Hodlnaut: How a rising star fell back to earth