I work at a Vancouver-based tech company that has not paid 400 of its North American employees since May. There are 1600 more in China waiting for their paycheques. It is called Istuary Innovation Group.

The CEO, Ethan Sun, established the company in Vancouver in 2013. Within 4 years, he was able to secure sufficient funding to expand it to a company with 1800+ employees globally, who were working in 20+ offices across North American in China.

On June 15th, Ethan Sun claimed that we are encountering a cash flow shortage because he is working on a acquisition of company in China. Upon completion of the deal, he would be able to pay us. Initially, He said paycheck will be issued in couple of weeks but that did not happen. On June 30, he sent another email promising that all pay dues will be settled by July 31. He also said employees who stay with company and did not sue the company will receive additional 5% bonus. but we were not paid on july 31st. We were said that Company is going to get lot bigger and stronger after acquisition is complete. All employees who choose to remain with the company will get rewards and career growth.

We understand, Startups go through periods of financial difficulties, But what put us in this situation is lack of transparency from management and false hopes provided by CEO, Ethan Sun and CFO, Brian Chen. They have purposefully hidden facts about the company's financial situation to keep the employees from leaving and sue the company.

Few of us filed complaint with Labour standards branch to get relief by end of June and We haven't heard positive resolution from them yet. We were shocked to see Employment laws in Developed countries like Canada let Employer walk free without paying employees for four months. There seems to be no consequences for Ethan Sun for all the trouble caused to the employees.

Since August 31, we have not heard from the CEO nor the CFO, leaving many of us jobless, at the mercy of EI. Disgruntled, we are on a quest to address this issue to the media and government.

Media Coverage of our situation

Global BC - https://globalnews.ca/news/3771076/employees-at-va...

National Post - http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/b-c-firm-devel...

Omni TV - http://www.omnitv.ca/bc/cmn/videos/%E8%8F%AF%E8%B3%87%E7%A7%91%E6%8A%80%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%96%91%E6%AC%A0%E6%9C%AC%E5%9C%B0%E5%B7%A5%E4%BA%BA%E8%96%AA%E9%85%AC-bc-sept-27-2017/

Glassdoor - https://www.glassdoor.ca/Overview/Working-at-Istua...