What did Denys Burnis say on the recorded calls?

Six excerpts from recorded conversations. Each can be read in English translation or in the Russian original, and played back as de-identified audio.

These conversations took place while the dispute was still open. At that point the company’s stated position was to pay part of the invoiced hours; no payment for April or May followed.

* To maintain a balance between public transparency and privacy protection, only selected fragments of the conversation are provided. The original recording was created by one of the participants as part of their lawful right to document business communications and to collect evidence of contractual interactions.

* All audio fragments have been processed for de-identification; the voices have been significantly altered and cannot be used for impersonation or biometric identification. The content of the conversation, however, has been preserved accurately and without distortion to ensure the reliability of the accompanying transcriptions.

* The complete unaltered recording is securely stored and may be provided to authorized government or law-enforcement agencies upon official request through appropriate legal procedures.

  • Recorded call 1

    • Denys - I've received your hours. We’ll try to process them soon. As I told you, the transfer for April will be done today, so I think you’ll get it by tomorrow. It’s a day off for us today, so if that affects things it might take longer, but usually you receive it the next day — it’s been fast before. So don’t worry about April. Regarding May, I haven’t had time yet — I saw what you sent but I didn’t have time to review it. You sent it last night when I was going to bed, so I didn’t even get to look. In the next day or two I’ll discuss it with the team, we’ll finalize and close everything. I think there’s no reason to worry — we’ll pay what we owe. I’ll try to process April right now, so don’t worry about that.

    Evidence for:

  • Recorded call 2

    • Contractor - Okay, I understand. I have my first question. Why was the contract we signed effectively not even terminated but rather simply refused by the company — since all my accesses were taken away at once? As I understand, that’s a refusal from the agreement, not a termination, because under our contract termination required a written 14-day notice.
    • Denys - I wouldn’t say that’s entirely correct. When we pause cooperation, access is revoked for security reasons. Since we have access to GitHub, Slack, and communications, removing access when things are paused isn’t extraordinary. Even if you had one of our laptops, we would still restrict access — you wouldn’t be able to log in. This is not an unusual practice; many companies do this, especially when employees work with information the company considers valuable. It’s done for various reasons, one being to avoid potential harm. For example, our Git repositories weren’t locked (note: participants’ rights weren’t restricted), and someone could theoretically delete a repository irreversibly. Companies have experienced situations where access wasn’t revoked and they lost passwords or data. To protect the company and other employees, revoking access is standard practice.

    Evidence for:

  • Recorded call 3

    • Contractor - Alright. In that case I consider our contract terminated, since it’s clear we won’t be working together for some time and I’ll be looking for a new job. I’d like to receive from the company an official letter stating that the contract has been terminated.
    • Denys - Okay, we’ll check what provisions we had in the contract — I’ll review it and we’ll reach some common understanding. It makes sense to look into it. I’ll see what was written and discuss it with HR.
    • Contractor - I’d like you to send it to my email because Telegram is unstable for me.
    • Denys - We’ll figure something out. Give me some time — I’ll discuss with HR and then we’ll handle it.

    Evidence for:

  • Recorded call 4

    • Contractor - Denys, I have another question about April. According to our contract and, apparently, Wyoming practice, the company has no right to retroactively reduce tracked hours and payment. I’d like to see some legal justification for why I would be paid for an incomplete April and potentially an incomplete May — also by email.
    • Denys - But we discussed the hours with you, so, yeah.
    • Contractor - Yes, I understand. I would like a legal justification for all this.
    • Denys - Well, we sort of don’t have one… I don’t know, when you say legal justification. You wrote that you had a certain number of completed hours? We told you those hours don’t correspond to the work that was actually done.
    • Contractor - Yes, I remember. And I’d like an official legal letter regarding that.
    • Denys - I’ll see what can be done.
    • Contractor - Because, as far as I understand and have researched, this is not only a violation of our contract but also of U.S. law. So I’d like to see a legal basis for such actions from the company.
    • Denys - You mean that the hours were inflated?
    • Contractor - Yes. It turns out the company not only does not pay the invoice in full but also effectively does not recognize a certain number — almost half — of the tracked hours. I’d like some legal justification for that.
    • Denys - I’ll tell you this — your logged hours simply don’t match what was actually done. You can log anything, but I don’t see how those hours represent real work. Our concern is that the invoice doesn’t reflect reality.
    • Contractor - I understand. But I’d like to see a legal justification for this, not just words. There are commits and pull requests — several dozen, as I noticed.
    • Denys - I completely agree. We will pay the amount that corresponds to those commits. We’re not refusing to pay. But if something shows 16 hours while the commit took an hour and a half, we have questions.
    • Contractor - Okay, I understand. Still, I insist on legal justification for this. And tell me — can we make sure there won’t be any claims about May?
    • Denys - What do you mean exactly? I didn’t quite understand the question about the hours.
    • Contractor - So that there are no complaints about May’s hours. Everything seems fine there. I watched the tracking closely this time.
    • Denys - I’ll take a look — I don’t know what’s happening there. When we discuss it with the team, we’ll make our decision.

    Evidence for:

  • Recorded call 5

    • Denys - So I don’t have a problem with that. You can put anything in the invoice, that’s fine. We have our view of how long tasks should take and you have yours, so the question is why it took that long.
    • Contractor - If it’s important to you, I’m ready to provide written confirmation that I assert the logged hours are accurate, and that any mistakes I made were not intentional.
    • Denys - We’re not really interested in who made what mistakes or when. When people later say they did work and then removed it, it’s a pointless discussion. So we won’t pay for those hours at all. That raises questions about what else is going on with those hours.
    • Contractor - Alright, alright.
    • Denys - So basically, if something was tracked but there are no results or we have doubts about what was actually done during that time, we have doubts so we pay based on what’s right. If you want, I can even review March again.
    • Contractor - Why?
    • Denys - Just to look for any nuances in the work — to see what was done and how it all ties together.
    • Contractor - March has already been paid, so there’s no point discussing it. I’m concerned about April and May, because it seems all changes are made postfactum, not when they should be.
    • Denys - I wouldn’t call it postfactum. An invoice was issued and we reviewed it. I don’t see how you expected me to monitor it throughout April.
    • Contractor - Okay, I understand your position. Nevertheless, I’d like to receive some written legal justification for all of this.
    • Denys - This written legal justification — I’ll talk to HR and ask what they can do.
    • Contractor - Okay, thank you.
    • Denys - So, don’t worry — we’ll review tracked hours and pay for rendered work.
    • Contractor - Okay, I understand.
    • Denys - Then I’ll talk to HR — it may take a couple of days, but we’ll keep it under control.

    Evidence for:

  • Recorded call 6

    • Contractor - I’ll write a message now summarizing what we agreed on, okay? So we don’t lose track.
    • Denys - Whatever’s more convenient for you. Okay.
    • Contractor - And tell me — can you send me the company’s email address where I could send something if Telegram becomes unavailable? That could happen.
    • Denys - No, Telegram works, you can safely write on Telegram — there won’t be problems.
    • Contractor - Okay.
    • Denys - So don’t worry about that.

    Evidence for: