Blockchain and insurance technology business Blocksure has been ordered by an employment tribunal to pay multiple members of staff for unlawfully withheld or deducted wages, going as far back as 2019 in one case.
In total, the business has been ordered to pay back more than £58,000 across three claims, with two rulings handed down in October and one in August. All payment orders were net, with the company ordered to account to HMRC for any tax and national insurance figures due.
Under an October ruling, the business will have to pay £23,955 to a claimant named as D Danabek in tribunal documents – this sum would have been £48,337 but for payments the business has made to the individual.
Blocksure was found to have “unlawfully deducted” wages from the claimant between August 2019 and June 2022.
Also in October, Blocksure was ordered to pay £20,460 to an N Shah for having “unlawfully deducted wages” between 31 January and 6 April of this year, according to tribunal documents.
Danabek declined to comment, while Shah was not immediately available for comment.
On 1 August, the company was given 42 days to pay former employee Martynas Petuska £13,984.03, with the tribunal having ruled that “unauthorised deductions” had been made from Petuska’s wages.
“My hearing was basically pretty straightforward,” Petuska said.
“They chose not to defend; I don't see how they could – the only thing they did ask for was the extension of the grace period [to 42 days] to pay on the monies owed.”
Petuska, who left the company in April, told Insurance Business that he had yet to receive the full sum that was due to be paid before the end of September as per the tribunal’s August ruling and in line with the extension requested.
Petuska alleged that staff were told on multiple occasions that any owed wages would soon arrive under the understanding that a US-based investor would come on board, but he said that he gave up waiting in April and switched jobs.
Blocksure was founded in 2016 and has claimed to be an “insurance technology company with a difference”. Blocksure CEO Ranvir Saggu, a former Towergate finance director and Fosun Europe managing director, declined to comment when approached by Insurance Business.
The business launched its first Blocksure OS product with insurer Covea and broker Commercial and General in 2018.
This year, Blocksure’s microinsurance platform debuted in Indonesia, Saggu said on social media three months ago.
The company had net liabilities of £3.8 million in 2021, and capital and reserves of minus £3.8 million, according to Companies House filings.
Parent company Blocksure Holdings had net assets and capital and reserves of just over £1.4 million each for the same year, documents showed.
