Perth Game Company CEO Takes IP By Night

snicho99 writes "A US owned gaming company has fled Australia, leaving unpaid employees and a massive tax bill. Apparently many staff have been working unpaid for months to allow their game to ship and hopefully the company to recover. Interzone's Perth (Western Australia) office was created with the assistance of a state government grant. Last week Interzone's (American) CEO entered the building at night and removed all the servers and IP so that Interzone could continue production at a new company they have opened in Ireland. The staff caught him on camera. More background here."

Comments

Re:Other countries are interesting

[Sulphur]

free beers and hookers

Either you were running a tipsy knitting circle, or the folks were looking for a boss behind the boss --

big cheese, xtra crust, and anchovies.

Re:Why he gets away with it...

[mjwx]

(Assuming it's true) because people like this assume that most people are logical and aren't going to go postal on them so they can just walk in an do what they like. That's the price of civilization, you can bet he wouldnt've raided the office like this or cheated workers ouf of salaries if workers had reputations of smashing skulls in with bats.

And getting a standby flight to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur all of two hours after you've done your ingenious, secret removal of IP is so incredibly difficult (lets not even consider how hard it would be if he were willing to pay a premium).

I'll hit you with the clue by four about Perth, Western Australia. It's cheaper and easier to get out of this country from Perth then it is to get a flight to Sydney or Melbourne from Perth. This arsehole would have been safely on a Singapore Airlines flight from SIN to LAX before anyone in Perth had even woken up. Such is the price you pay for modern civilisation. A fat lot of good bats will do over the Pacific.

BTW we play Cricket over here not Baseball, Cricket bats are noticeably larger and heavier then baseball and result in far greater injuries.
BTW x2, Perth's international Airport is less then 30 minutes drive from Perth's city centre.
BTW x3, flight time from Perth (PER) to Singapore (SIN) is four and a half hours.

As others have said, the Tax Office will get this guy. Forget the AFP (Australian Federal Police) or ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation), if you cross the ATO (Australian Tax Office) you're in for a world of hurt, they are relentless and remorseless.