I am in a really awkward situation. I work in a small subsidiary company whose parent company is overseas. The parent company is in Singapore and owns our company here in Vietnam.

We are completely dependent on the parent company to send over funds for operation. For the last several months, the payroll has been delayed due to messy changes in our local management staff. We only have six employees, including the director and all decided to quit. Now that conflict does not seem to be solvable.

I think I am the lone guy who wants to at least complete my responsibility and help with the transition process. The overseas boss, who I am on good terms with, asks me to hand over the work of the whole team here (I work on and have access to most of the projects), because he said the local director threatens and holds ransom. On the other hand, the local director asks me not to do so, so that the parent company has to process payroll before we hand over any work. I want to be responsible, but also I don't want all my colleagues not being paid for, now that they can only depend on that "ransom" to be paid.

And to be clear, the parent company still has not sent funds for the last month, so we are not paid for our last month effort yet by the subsidiary company. We do not have proper funds to continue operations here. Even the office rental is due. We couldn't even shut down the company without agreement from the parent company.

We are only a small team and have no one for processes like HR, union, etc. Everyone resigned, but our director here doesn't want to hand over the work, more specifically software source code, to the parent company unless they process the payroll for our last month.

What should I do now? I know I could just hand over my own stuff, but most of my work have efforts of others, too. So I'm not sure what to do about that. And if I side with the local director and hold the work until payroll is processed, would that be counted as ransom or collusion if a lawsuit is to be involved?

I just feel really frustrated sitting between the two parties and would appreciate any advice on this situation.

FWIW, I also handed in my resignation, but I want to complete the transition process so it wouldn't cause much damage to the parent company.