A police complaint has been filed at the Bandra police station over the non-payment of dues by TFM/360 India, a model management agency, to over 30 models. The complaint has been filed by model Arlette Grao.
In an earlier story, LiveWire had reported that the agency collectively owes more than Rs 1 crore to their models, who have had to borrow money and take loans to meet their daily expenses during the lockdown. With no choice, a lot of them have had to apply for jobs elsewhere.
At the time, owner Ashish Soni had said that the lockdown has made an already bad financial situation worse. The agency, he said, had been running in losses since 2018, when a foreign investor pulled out. As a result, he said, they have been facing difficulties clearing the dues.
But though the agency had said that it is taking steps to pay the dues, models on its roster say it has yet to pay more than 30 models even though it has been almost a month since the issue came to the fore.
“Ashish has yet to pay more than 30 models. He is negotiating and unwilling to clear the dues. His lawyer had got in touch with our lawyer and was told that all settlements would be made. From then till date, no meeting has taken place. We have been constantly following up with Ashish’s lawyer, but to no avail,” said Grao.
Soni, who is a designer, recently showcased a collection at a digital edition of Lotus Make-Up India Fashion Week last week. “He claims he doesn’t have money to clear out all these pending dues, but he just had a showing at the fashion week,” said Grao.
“The company tried to recover as much as it could, but due to the fact that TFM/360 India was owed a great deal of money and such money was not recovered within a considerable amount of time, the financial and economic health of the company worsened,” Soni’s representative had written to LiveWire..