The Lithuanian haulier Uab-Baltic International Group Limited, founded in 2012 in Vilnius and operating in Europe for twelve years, was officially declared bankrupt on August 28, 2024. The company saw its revenue decline from over 1.5 million euros in 2022 to insolvency proceedings opened in the first half of 2024. Three months after the court ruling, some employees are still waiting for wages and arrears, with debt recovery now seeming increasingly complicated. Among them is a Belarusian driver who had been seeking to recover over ten thousand euros for several months and now sees the Lithuanian Guarantee Fund as his only hope of getting the money owed.
The driver, whose name has not been disclosed, began his struggle several months ago when he approached the Lithuanian Commission for Labor Disputes (DGK - Darbu Ginčų Komisija) after trying unsuccessfully to claim his back wages from his employer. The case progressed slowly due to bureaucratic hurdles, and the driver soon realized he needed legal assistance when asked to provide specific employment documentation that the employer had never supplied. He then turned to the Lithuanian Transport Workers' Union (LVPS), which, after reviewing the documents, confirmed that the unpaid wages amounted to nearly 10,000 euros, not including daily allowances.
In an unexpected move, Uab contacted a local union, expressing its intention to settle the dispute peacefully, and arranged a meeting with the driver to resolve the debt. According to local sources, the driver remained skeptical during the negotiations but eventually agreed to a payment plan of 8,000 euros, spread over three months, with the support of the union. However, the situation quickly deteriorated as the driver never received any payment, the company went bankrupt, and judicial officers found no assets to seize.
Investigations revealed that Uab often transferred wages from multiple bank accounts, not all of which were officially linked to the company. Some payments were even made from the personal accounts of the company director, further complicating the traceability of the transactions and the total debt estimation.
Following the bankruptcy, managers and executives seem to have vanished, rendering the September appeal by LVPS to the judicial officers futile. The bank accounts from which payments to the driver were made have been closed, the company's treasury is empty, and no physical assets exist to be seized. The only remaining contactable individual is the former director of Baltic International, who, according to his LinkedIn profile, now leads another logistics company but is currently neither under investigation nor facing criminal charges.
The debt to the driver, along with other employees, will therefore be covered by the Lithuanian Guarantee Fund, meaning taxpayers will bear the cost through the national budget. According to the LVPS deputy director, such behavior by companies is facilitated by the entrenched inefficiency of the authorities and a lack of oversight of insolvent companies.
Marco Martinelli
