The publisher of The Australian has pleaded guilty to contempt of court over an article it published about Victorian CFMMEU leader John Setka while he was facing blackmail charges.
Former NUW NSW branch secretary Derrick Belan has been sentenced to four years' jail on 60 charges that involved more than $650,000 of union funds, including personal spending on a tattoo, Botox treatments, holidays and a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
In a significant ruling that might reduce penalties regulators can win for Fair Work Act breaches, the Federal Court has found that the legislation's double jeopardy provision prevents the imposition of separate fines for related contraventions arising from the same conduct.
The FWO is seeking to fine the CFMMEU's MUA division more than $3.5 million for unlawful industrial action against Hutchison Ports, using a novel argument that historic contraventions of the same Fair Work Act provision denies the union the benefit of the legislation's single course of conduct mechanism.
The Registered Organisations Commission has initiated a prosecution of the AWU's Victorian branch and its former secretary, Cesar Melhem, for allegedly failing to remove 2,000 unfinancial members from the books over a five-year period through to 2013.
The Federal Court has ordered a company and its director to pay substantial fines for failing to pass on more than $11,000 in parental leave payments to a cook and then concealing their actions after the FWO began asking questions.
Key witnesses in this week's collapsed criminal case against two Victorian CFMEU leaders told the Melbourne Magistrates Court that nobody mentioned the word "blackmail" to them until more than a year after a crucial meeting in April 2013.
Having only recently been given the all-clear over a heavily-scrutinised $75,000 payment while at the CEPU, former Unions Tasmania secretary and political aspirant Kevin Harkins will face a Federal Court judge next month as the ABCC pursues him over "abusive" entry breaches.
A year after its establishment, the Registered Organisations Commission has begun its first court case, seeking penalties against the CEPU for allegedly failing to keep an accurate list of its offices and office holders on numerous occasions over a period of more than two years.
An underpaying employer has spent a night in prison before winning a stay on a 12-month jail term imposed for defying a court order that froze his assets.
