The Ukraine-based employee of a Massachusetts company’s Ukrainian subsidiary could bring a Wage Act suit over allegedly unreimbursed travel expenses and unpaid vacation time, a U.S. District Court judge has determined.
In 2016, plaintiff George Serebrennikov entered a consulting agreement with defendant Proxet Group, a Massachusetts-based software development company. The agreement labeled him an independent contractor.
Serebrennikov, who apparently worked primarily in Ukraine, separately entered into an employment contract with Proxet’s Ukrainian subsidiary, Proxet Ukraine.
After Serebrennikov and Proxet Group parted ways in 2022, he sued the company, alleging that it violated the Wage Act by failing to pay him $22,500 in unpaid salary, a $100,000 bonus, $16,000 worth of unused vacation time, and more than $450,000 in unreimbursed employment-related expenses.
Moving for summary judgment, Proxet Group argued that the Wage Act did not apply because the “operative contract” in the case was Serebrennikov’s employment agreement with Proxet Ukraine, which had a Ukraine choice-of-law provision, and because Serebrennikov lived in Ukraine, performed his work there, and the parties had virtually no interactions in Massachusetts.
But Judge Indira Talwani disagreed, finding that the defendants’ reliance...
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