An AI enterprise involved in the use of synthetic “human-like skin” for testing skincare and health products has been ordered to pay more than €3,000 to a former employee who said she was told she would not receive what she was owed because the “company had no funds”.
Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) complainant Tracey Ryan was employed as a scientific skincare adviser from November 2021 to July 2023 by Rinocloud Ltd and worked full-time on a gross monthly salary of €6,666.67.
Ms Ryan appeared at the WRC in person and said that she had been employed by Rinocloud Ltd, an AI company that went out of business last year. In June 2023, Ms Ryan said Rinocloud was in “big trouble” and she was placed on notice of employment cessation.
Ms Ryan said she was assured her wages and annual leave would be paid but at the end of July, “there was no pay, no answers and no explanation”. Because of “uncertainty and lack of clarity”, she was unable to sign on for jobseekers’ benefit, she said.
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The complainant submitted that the head of service in the UK tried to help but “refused” to explain what was happening. At the time of the redundancy, a separate company was now using the company office, as this company had bought Rinocloud Ltd, she said.
Ms Ryan said that she was given an understanding before the conclusion of her employment that wages and annual leave would not be met, “as the company had no funds”.
The WRC adjudication said that “this message seemed to arrive from the chief executive of the [new] parent company and not Rinocloud Ltd, the subsidiary”. The complainant submitted that she had availed of five annual leave days and was owed 9.5 days on cessation of employment.
Adjudication officer Patsy Doyle said there was no appearance by, or on behalf of, the respondent at the hearing and that no defence was filed. All attempts to secure the presence of the respondent at the hearing were unsuccessful, as all correspondence was returned from the business address, said Ms Doyle. “The complainant has described a very unusual employment relationship.”
Ms Doyle said the Company Registration Office (CRO) listed Rinocloud Ltd as a private company, whose status was “normal”, and who had a 2016-registered address at the IDA Industrial Estate, Charleville, Co Cork, where all inter-party correspondence was sent for their attention.
“I find that the failure by the respondent to engage in this statutory claim to be unreasonable. I find the evidence adduced by the complainant to be cogent and find this company avoidant on the topic of their obligations,” she said.
Ms Doyle said she carried out a “careful perusal” of the contract signed by the complainant – but not the employer – in November 2021, which she said referenced a different registered office than that at the CRO. “Given that this postdated the company registration by six years – I find this to be misleading,” Ms Doyle said.
Ms Doyle said she accepted the uncontested evidence that Ms Ryan had accrued her annual leave, which remained untaken, and that the respondent had failed to prove the leave had been taken.
“I would also have liked to have seen both parties advance this dispute in accordance with the contractual grievance policy. However, I have given some weighting to the abrupt ending to the employment. I find the claim is well founded,” Ms Doyle said, who then awarded Ms Ryan €3,166.66 for the untaken leave.
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