Equinox will not be making invoice payments until further notice | Hacker News Reader

Equinox will not be making invoice payments until further notice

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20 pointsundefined110 comments

I'm amazed that they're bold enough to announce that they won't be paying their bills. Is the culture of entitlement really that strong?

You call up each person/company you owe and you beg, hat in hand, for an extension. Or you get an emergency loan or line of credit or file for bankruptcy and stop paying bills that way.

But you can't just say, "the government made it so we are struggling so we've decided to stop paying our bills."

It doesn't seem like it's really about entitlement - what other option do they have? They aren't going to get a voluntary extension from copywriter #23 who needs money for her own bills, the bankruptcy courts are closed, and no bank's going to give them an unrestricted line of credit if they don't know when gyms can reopen. This is far beyond "struggling"; the government's made their business illegal for the indefinite future.

But you can't just say, "the government made it so we are struggling so we've decided to stop paying our bills."

You actually can do this, and Equinox did. The remedy is for their creditors to sue them when the courts reopen.

No, the reality has long been exactly what Equinox is doing (or just not paying and saying nothing), if people don't like it, they can sue you knowing that the likely result is bankruptcy and them taking their chances with bankruptcy court.

> But you can't just say, "the government made it so we are struggling so we've decided to stop paying our bills."

Yes, you manifestly can. If people don't like it, they have remedies, but as it turns out, those remefies mostly suck if the rat get is actually insolvent, especially if you are pretty far down the priority list of creditors. And they suck even moreso when the courts aren't open.

You're right, you can declare bankruptcy and go into administration. That's your way out.

You don't get to arbitrarily stop paying, and also keep doing business as usual.

“Get” is an interesting choice of word. They won’t escape without any punishment but they certainly can do this.

Their landlord can take them to court... when the courts open.

> You don't get to arbitrarily stop paying

Yes, as has been demonstrated.by lots of companies lots of times, you do get to do that.

If other people don't like it, they have a variety of options of how to respond, of course. But those options kind of suck, because they cost money and, ultimately, you can't get blood from a turnip.

The biggest problem facing trying to do this is getting people to extend new credit, which tends to place a hard wall for most efforts to do it, as not being able to pay your old bills might not shut you down, but being unable to get new goods and services will.

And the real estate company that owns a large portion of Equinox said companies are obligated to pay their rents. But they’re not obligated to pay for services rendered? Scumbags.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/related-companies-ceo-those-...

Are they declaring bankruptcy? If not I don't see how it's legal. Failure to put aside savings for hardship is a failure in planning - we have been told this repeatedly by economists, MBAs, and politicians.

The email they posted seems like an automated generated message. It doesn’t refer specifically to the work she has rendered. This leads me to believe that it might have been just to the general members? Are they sending this to the rental/mortgages as well? I wouldn’t except such an email, except if they are going out of business soon... are they going to foreclose? Fitness is notoriously a fickle business.

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