On April 29, 2019, I had submitted my resignation letter. One week later, my direct superior, who is the HR manager of the company, and I discussed about it after which we reached a verbal agreement that I would continue working in the company for the time being.

Since then, I have neither seen my resignation letter nor received an acknowledgement of its receipt.
Around July, I lost motivation to continue working in the company due to some office politics, and I once again expressed my intent to leave the company. To my surprise, the management decided on July 9, 2019 to accept the resignation letter that I submitted in April, and declared July 29, 2019 as the end of my notice period. I was also notified in writing that July 29 will be my last working day in the company, and I had time until end of July or August to look for another company/sponsor to transfer my visa locally.

As of today, I am still searching for a job in Kuwait. I would like to make some legal inquiries concerning this matter. Firstly, could you please advise if what they did in terms of delaying the acceptance of my resignation is correct? Secondly, if I am unable to find a job in Kuwait and get my visa transferred to a different sponsor by the end of August, what will be the legal implications?

Name withheld

Answer: There is no simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to your first question. Even though there is a semblance of breach of trust when your boss prevailed on you to continue working in the company for the time being but reneged on this verbal agreement when you once again expressed your intent to leave.

At this juncture, we must point out to you that you made a big mistake in not taking back your resignation letter from your boss when he prevailed on you to change your mind to resign.

Armed with your resignation letter, your boss can argue on the legality of the steps he has taken but you don’t have any superior argument to counter his claims as it will be difficult for you to prove the verbal agreement reached with him especially if he decides to deny ever concluding such an agreement with you.

As to your second question, there is not much you can do except to reach an understanding with the company to give you more time to effect the transfer. Let it be known however, that you can’t have time in perpetuity to transfer your visa and this must conclude at a point in time with either a transfer or if not possible a return to your country for good or to come back on a new visa.

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