1. An agent who hired workers on behalf of an employer, but told the workers that he, the agent, will be paying their wages, is the one obligated to pay them. Consequently, if he does not pay on time, he transgresses bal talin (“Do not withhold…”). This is true even if he informed them that the job is not his own.

If he hired them without specification, that is, he did not tell them that their wages will be paid by the true employer nor that he would be paying them himself — then the Halacha depends on what the workers knew on their own: If they [somehow] knew that the job was not for the agent, then the agent does not transgress bal talin; but if they are unaware that he is merely an agent, and think they are working for him, then he transgresses the prohibition if he withholds their wages.