Underpaying employers could face fines of more than $4 million or three times the sum involved, while individuals such as directors and HR managers could face imprisonment and penalties up to $825,000 per breach under further wage theft reforms being considered by the Albanese Government.
A dumpling chain's HR manager was knowingly concerned in its Fair Work Act contraventions and "did not simply act as a conduit", the Federal Court has held in a liability judgment, finding she also instructed and trained a colleague in a payroll scam using both accurate and inaccurate records.
The FSU has launched a Federal Court test case against NAB over alleged unreasonable additional working hours in what the union warns is "just the start" for the industry.
A judge irked by a multinational company's attempt to cast its underpaying subsidiary's award breaches as the court's "alternate interpretation" has imposed a near-maximum fine.
A judge has criticised the FWO for seeking "excessive" penalties against two restaurant businesses and reduced the penalties from the $250,000 the FWO sought to just $32,000 after it emerged that their director is broke and had been contemplating suicide.
A court has fined the director of a Japanese restaurant almost $25,000 after finding that he "reverse engineered" pay records provided to the FWO and asked a shortchanged employee not to "sell me out".
A former economics professor's troubled relationship with workplace laws has continued, after a court accepted that he "actively" managed an underpaying grocery store previously fined for similar breaches.
In a rare Federal Court ruling on reasonable additional hours, a large employer faces penalties for numerous Fair Work Act and award breaches after being found to have employed a recently-arrived "third-world" migrant on a 50-hour week in which shifts began at 2am.
The Federal Court has set a seven-week trial to hear Adero Law's class actions against Coles and Woolworths in tandem with FWO underpayment claims against the retailers, while the law firm seeks about a third of a $2.2 million settlement with Drakes and Foodland.
A FWC member has applied the "well known 'duck principle'" in holding that a tyre recycling company suspected of phoenixing unfairly sacked a worker who complained about unpaid superannuation, before threatening to kill a director.
