The state Department of Labor says a Geneva company did nothing wrong when it failed to give a warning to its employees it would be closing.
A Labor Department spokesperson told the Finger Lakes Times the investigation found RealEats met an exception outlined in a section of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification or WARN rules. They did not indicate what the exception the former meal-delivery company met.
An investigation was called for after RealEats abruptly closed at the beginning of March and failed to give its workers 90 days’ notice in the event of mass layoffs as required by the state.
In the days following the closing, RealEats founder Dan Wise said the company had no choice but to cease operations immediately after the company’s lender abruptly pulled its capital from the company’s bank account.
Three weeks after it closed, a lawsuit was filed against RealEats. The Finger Lakes Times reported an Indiana investor claimed Wise and his CFO, made numerous false statements at a presentation to potential investors in December related to the company’s financial prospects and growth potential. After that presentation, the Indiana firm invested $450,000 dollars into RealEats, which closed on March 1st.
In the suit, the firm claims RealEats was not seeking the money to use for investment into the company, but rather to reduce its debts to the company’s senior lender
