Late last month, dozens of sacked employees of Nasdaq-listed Missfresh Ltd. crowded a government-run labor arbitration office in Beijing, demanding months-worth of unpaid wages and compensation for their sudden firing.
The previous day, the online grocer had laid off most of its staff and closed its core express grocery delivery business, which had accounted for 85% of its revenue. Missfresh, which is now believed to owe as much as 2 billion yuan in unpaid debts, has denied it is going into liquidation.