Legal Question in Business Law in Virginia

Re: Dealing with IC - payments and bad mouthing.

Unless your contract with your subcontractor includes a "pay-when-paid" clause, you owe the subcontractor whether or not you are paid. They have every right to demand payment in accordance with the contractual payment terms, and to take any steps allowed by law to collect, including making truthful public statements about your non-payment. You need to make arrangements to make sure that you get paid by the customer -- up front if need be -- or at least that you are sufficiently capitalized to cover these liabilities in the event your customers don't pay. Meanwhile, you need to collect from your customer: that means sue them, assert mechanics liens if allowed, etc., if they don't pay. But generally, 30 days is not unusual - so maybe the problem is that you are agreeing to payment terms with your subs that are faster than you have agreed to accept with your clients. If that's the case, you need to changed your contract terms (on future transactions).