3 ms·

Tell HN: Publisher refuses to pay me based on nationality

5 points by _p8yz 3y ago

I am an author of a book that has low, but steady sales and giving me some royalties each quarter. Packt Publishing refuses to pay me royalties based on my nationality. I am Russian by nationality, but I live and work outside of Russia. When I have asked them to update me on payment schedule since I have not received anything starting from 2022, company representatives asked for my passport copy over email. I have sent them my residence card along with my passport copy. After that, they replied the following: > Please note your passport is showing nationality as Russian. > We cannot make any payments on your account till further notice from management. After this message, they have ceased all communication with me and do not reply to any messages I send. Since Packt is based in London, is this even legal? A quick search shows the following: The Equality Act 2010 makes it illegal to discriminate anyone because of age, gender reassignment, marital status, being pregnant or on maternity leave, disability, race (which includes colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, and sex or sexual orientation.

rewmie 3y ago
> I am Russian by nationality, but I (...) It sounds like Pakt Publishing might be bounded by law, and you're experiencing a consequence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. > Since Packt is based in London, is this even legal? A quick search shows the following: The Equality Act 2010 makes it (...) A quick read of Wikipedia's article on the International sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine show that the UK enacted a number of sanctions targeting the banking sector, including a deposit limit for Russian citizens in UK bank accounts. I think that you might already be aware of that, and if that's the case you're making a very disingenuous and bad-faith case against a publisher, which is rendered obvious by the way you purposely omitted any reference to the root cause of the whole problem: Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
- _p8yz 3y ago
  > the UK enacted a number of sanctions targeting the banking sector, including a deposit limit for Russian citizens in UK bank accounts. I do not request those funds to be deposited to a UK bank account, I even don't have any. And I don't have any sanctions imposed on me personally. The publishing company itself does not answer my questions of which laws or restrictions apply here. I do not understand, how am I being very disingenuous and bad-faith? I am refused to be paid without any comment on "why", despite "your nationality is Russian". Based on all existing laws, the only thing I could find is that using this as a sole base of rejection is not correct.
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    > I do not request those funds to be deposited to a UK bank account, I even don't have any. Regardless if the banking sector has sanctions against working with Russian citizens they would not be able to transfer you the money as they wouldn't be able to transfer the money from there bank account (which has to follow the sanctions).
    - _p8yz 3y ago
      This is probably the case. I hope that I will receive such information. As of now, I can’t find any communication from Packt that indicates that exact reason.
    - _p8yz 3y ago
      I see. Thanks for this clarification. This might be indeed the case, and if the publisher referred to any such restrictions I’d understood. But their official letter which contains info on this said that restrictions only apply only to people in Russia or Belarus. Because of this wording, I have expected that the thing will follow the route of Binance or AirBnB, where you can work with the company without issues if you are not located in restricted country or have sanctions on your name. And up to this point all sparse info that I’ve received in replies just says the opposite: it’s based on nationality, and not location, and not backed up by any documented sanctions or restrictions.
- richliss 3y ago
  This person as far as we are aware is NOT a designated person that sanctions are impacting and they are NOT located in Russia. If the author's statements are true then Packt Publishing is acting terribly here - There's a good chance it's not legal. They only should have two options from a legal standpoint - honour the contract if the author isn't a designated person or cancel the contract if they are a designated person. Either way that shouldn't mean they continue to sell the book without paying royalties or keep existing earnings. I hope the author keeps publicly updating us on their case - it's of interest to anyone who wants to publish and are considering Packt as an option.
  - _p8yz 3y ago
    Thank you for this reply. I am happy to see a supportive comment here. Yes, I am updating on this just for others to be aware of this possibility. I was trying to solve this for a year already, and now Packt Team just stopped communicating with me whatsoever. I did not publish a book for money, and the amount of royalties is not life-changing for me, like with any other authors. But still, I don’t yet see this way of operations correct. The company is getting profits from my work, and I am devoid of my share until further notice. I am still getting quarterly notifications with outstanding amounts, but I can not do anything with them. I share this to see if anyone ever experienced such situations, and to warn any upcoming authors with Russian nationality of potential issues. Packt team were very supportive in the process of writing and releasing the book, and I had a good overall experience with them. And they always been on the line with me for any questions, till the last few weeks.
  - rewmie 3y ago
    > This person as far as we are aware is NOT a designated person that sanctions are impacting and they are NOT located in Russia. Irrelevant. If you read up on the Russia sanctions[1] you'll learn that violating sanctions is a criminal offense, and they are set up so that the responsibility to ensure not only that "your Russian agents, partners or suppliers are subject to current financial sanctions" but also "if individuals or organisations are ‘owned’ or ‘controlled’ either directly or indirectly by designated persons". This means that in order to ensure that a company will not be committing a crime by doing a payment, they need to do an extensive background check on the payment recipient, and even then they would be taking a major risk. In the very least, this would require extensive cooperation from the payment recipient to go through the necessary lengths to demonstrate satisfactorily that paying them wouldn't violate sanctions. However, in this case the person in question seems to already have a propensity to be deceitful and disingenuous in the way they chose to present the problem. [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/trading-under-sanctions-with-russia https://www.gov.uk/guidance/trading-under-sanctions-with-rus...
taneliv 3y ago
Your quick search did not find https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-russia https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-ru... or https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/russia-sanctions-guidance/russia-sanctions-guidance https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/russia-sanctions-... at all? That's bizarre. Anyway, would be best to go through them, to find more recent legislation concerning your case than the Equality Act 2010.
- _p8yz 3y ago
  Of course I know about the sanctions. Do they negate the equity act? Do you know about any clauses there that forbid paying people for their work based on signed contract agreement? Or forbidding signing such agreements with people that were born in Russia? I would not be asking questions if I know that I fall under any such restrictions. I am not a government worker, working and living abroad. My name is not in the sanction list. I have friends living and working in the UK who have Russian nationality. Those are regular people, getting their salary and paying their taxes. The same is the case for me, however I do not live in UK specifically. I would have understood this, if I was asking to pay me on my Russian bank account, or to a Russian legal entity. But I am just a natural person, how could sanctions apply here?
  - rewmie 3y ago
    > Of course I know about the sanctions. Do they negate the equity act? I have no doubt you already know your argument is bullshit, but opted to go on a smear campaign to try to circumvent the natural consequences of the sanctions imposed on Russia in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
    - dang 3y ago
      Please don't post in the flamewar style, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Edit: it looks like you've been breaking the site guidelines recently in other threads as well, such as the swipes in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749506 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749471. Moreover, we've had to ask you about this at least twice before. Can you please review the site guidelines and fix this? We want commenters on HN to make their substantive points thoughtfully, not aggressively—partly as a matter of respect for other users, but mostly as a way of preserving the forum for its intended purpose.
_p8yz 3y ago
-=[ISSUE RESOLVED]=- An update to everyone. I have sent another few emails, luckily landing at a different support team representative. They have confirmed that the previous rejection based on nationality was not valid and that they will process my case as usual.

5 points by _p8yz 3y ago

rewmie 3y ago

> I am Russian by nationality, but I (...) It sounds like Pakt Publishing might be bounded by law, and you're experiencing a consequence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. > Since Packt is based in London, is this even legal? A quick search shows the following: The Equality Act 2010 makes it (...) A quick read of Wikipedia's article on the International sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine show that the UK enacted a number of sanctions targeting the banking sector, including a deposit limit for Russian citizens in UK bank accounts. I think that you might already be aware of that, and if that's the case you're making a very disingenuous and bad-faith case against a publisher, which is rendered obvious by the way you purposely omitted any reference to the root cause of the whole problem: Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

_p8yz 3y ago
> the UK enacted a number of sanctions targeting the banking sector, including a deposit limit for Russian citizens in UK bank accounts. I do not request those funds to be deposited to a UK bank account, I even don't have any. And I don't have any sanctions imposed on me personally. The publishing company itself does not answer my questions of which laws or restrictions apply here. I do not understand, how am I being very disingenuous and bad-faith? I am refused to be paid without any comment on "why", despite "your nationality is Russian". Based on all existing laws, the only thing I could find is that using this as a sole base of rejection is not correct.
- _kbh_ 3y ago
  > I do not request those funds to be deposited to a UK bank account, I even don't have any. Regardless if the banking sector has sanctions against working with Russian citizens they would not be able to transfer you the money as they wouldn't be able to transfer the money from there bank account (which has to follow the sanctions).
  - _p8yz 3y ago
    This is probably the case. I hope that I will receive such information. As of now, I can’t find any communication from Packt that indicates that exact reason.
  - _p8yz 3y ago
    I see. Thanks for this clarification. This might be indeed the case, and if the publisher referred to any such restrictions I’d understood. But their official letter which contains info on this said that restrictions only apply only to people in Russia or Belarus. Because of this wording, I have expected that the thing will follow the route of Binance or AirBnB, where you can work with the company without issues if you are not located in restricted country or have sanctions on your name. And up to this point all sparse info that I’ve received in replies just says the opposite: it’s based on nationality, and not location, and not backed up by any documented sanctions or restrictions.
richliss 3y ago
This person as far as we are aware is NOT a designated person that sanctions are impacting and they are NOT located in Russia. If the author's statements are true then Packt Publishing is acting terribly here - There's a good chance it's not legal. They only should have two options from a legal standpoint - honour the contract if the author isn't a designated person or cancel the contract if they are a designated person. Either way that shouldn't mean they continue to sell the book without paying royalties or keep existing earnings. I hope the author keeps publicly updating us on their case - it's of interest to anyone who wants to publish and are considering Packt as an option.
- _p8yz 3y ago
  Thank you for this reply. I am happy to see a supportive comment here. Yes, I am updating on this just for others to be aware of this possibility. I was trying to solve this for a year already, and now Packt Team just stopped communicating with me whatsoever. I did not publish a book for money, and the amount of royalties is not life-changing for me, like with any other authors. But still, I don’t yet see this way of operations correct. The company is getting profits from my work, and I am devoid of my share until further notice. I am still getting quarterly notifications with outstanding amounts, but I can not do anything with them. I share this to see if anyone ever experienced such situations, and to warn any upcoming authors with Russian nationality of potential issues. Packt team were very supportive in the process of writing and releasing the book, and I had a good overall experience with them. And they always been on the line with me for any questions, till the last few weeks.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > This person as far as we are aware is NOT a designated person that sanctions are impacting and they are NOT located in Russia. Irrelevant. If you read up on the Russia sanctions[1] you'll learn that violating sanctions is a criminal offense, and they are set up so that the responsibility to ensure not only that "your Russian agents, partners or suppliers are subject to current financial sanctions" but also "if individuals or organisations are ‘owned’ or ‘controlled’ either directly or indirectly by designated persons". This means that in order to ensure that a company will not be committing a crime by doing a payment, they need to do an extensive background check on the payment recipient, and even then they would be taking a major risk. In the very least, this would require extensive cooperation from the payment recipient to go through the necessary lengths to demonstrate satisfactorily that paying them wouldn't violate sanctions. However, in this case the person in question seems to already have a propensity to be deceitful and disingenuous in the way they chose to present the problem. [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/trading-under-sanctions-with-russia https://www.gov.uk/guidance/trading-under-sanctions-with-rus...

taneliv 3y ago

Your quick search did not find https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-russia https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-sanctions-on-ru... or https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/russia-sanctions-guidance/russia-sanctions-guidance https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/russia-sanctions-... at all? That's bizarre. Anyway, would be best to go through them, to find more recent legislation concerning your case than the Equality Act 2010.

_p8yz 3y ago
Of course I know about the sanctions. Do they negate the equity act? Do you know about any clauses there that forbid paying people for their work based on signed contract agreement? Or forbidding signing such agreements with people that were born in Russia? I would not be asking questions if I know that I fall under any such restrictions. I am not a government worker, working and living abroad. My name is not in the sanction list. I have friends living and working in the UK who have Russian nationality. Those are regular people, getting their salary and paying their taxes. The same is the case for me, however I do not live in UK specifically. I would have understood this, if I was asking to pay me on my Russian bank account, or to a Russian legal entity. But I am just a natural person, how could sanctions apply here?
- rewmie 3y ago
  > Of course I know about the sanctions. Do they negate the equity act? I have no doubt you already know your argument is bullshit, but opted to go on a smear campaign to try to circumvent the natural consequences of the sanctions imposed on Russia in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
  - dang 3y ago
    Please don't post in the flamewar style, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Edit: it looks like you've been breaking the site guidelines recently in other threads as well, such as the swipes in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749506 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749471. Moreover, we've had to ask you about this at least twice before. Can you please review the site guidelines and fix this? We want commenters on HN to make their substantive points thoughtfully, not aggressively—partly as a matter of respect for other users, but mostly as a way of preserving the forum for its intended purpose.

_p8yz 3y ago

-=[ISSUE RESOLVED]=- An update to everyone. I have sent another few emails, luckily landing at a different support team representative. They have confirmed that the previous rejection based on nationality was not valid and that they will process my case as usual.