Interpretation of Signed Document

N

Nutso

Registered User
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645
Hi All,

First of all - I already posted this earlier in work, careers etc but got no responses and thought this might be a better location - mods sorry for posting twice but if you can delete the other thread please do do.

Hoping someone working in the legal side of things can give me their interpretation of the following document signed by employer & employee:

Salary = €x
Bonus = Circa €x + €x standard and production based and at the discretion of the managing director
Expenses = paid as per existing system

This agreement is based on your commitment to Company X over the next 5 years and your input to help grow and expand our existing company.

This document was signed in March 07 and full bonus was received for 2007. There was no bonus paid at all for 2008 (are they covered by "discretion of the managing director"?) although all targets were met and variations all accounted for making quite a bit of extra money for the company,

The agreement based on commitment over the next 5 years - does this tie the company in as well? Or would you interpret it to tie in only the employee?

Finally, the person involved has been asked to take a pay cut to 2005 salary. He is willing to take a pay cut but does not want to take a 30% cut, as he is already losing out on a substantial bonus. He wants to know if he agrees to take a pay cut, does that make the above document null & void?

TIA
Nutso
 
What was this supposed to mean:

This agreement is based on your commitment to Company X over the next 5 years and your input to help grow and expand our existing company.
Click to expand...

As far as I would be concerned it's meaningless. The person is presumably a permanent employee, if they leave they give standard notice etc. Equally the employer can make the employee redundant etc.

Re the document being null & void, the 'at the discretion of...' does that anyway surely?
 

The 5 yr thing: I interpret as being the lifetime of the remuneration agreement which is what this document is. It binds both employee and employer.

On the pay cut: entitled to refuse under the terms of the agreement. Note, the agreement has no provision for salary to be increased at any point (which is the flip side). I would suggest your pal use the opportunity to revise the agreement and the contract. Either get some paid legal advice or get his/her to the citizen's info bureau.
 

The 'at the discretion of' portion only seems to relate to the bonus payment.


I forgot to add that he had added to the document (both employer & employee copy) before he signed it:

"salary to be reviewed annually" - however didn't happen last year but as things were starting to go pear-shaped he didn't pursue it.

I'll tell him to get some legal advice on it.
 
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