Court orders nearly $24,000 - and pins the manager too, not just the company
A finance firm shorted three workers. A court just made the manager pay for it too.
A Melbourne finance brokerage and its manager have been ordered to pay nearly $24,000 in back pay after a court found the company underpaid three employees and dismissed one shortly after he raised questions about his pay and entitlements.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia entered default judgment against ANSA Finance Pty Ltd on May 27, 2026, declaring a string of breaches of the Fair Work Act and ordering $23,933.81 in compensation, plus interest and superannuation. The case was brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The dollar figure is small. The lessons for HR are not.
The first is personal exposure. On the basis of admissions the respondents were taken to have made by failing to defend, the court declared that the company's manager was "involved" in the breaches under s 550 of the Fair Work Act - the accessorial-liability provision - and is therefore taken to have contravened those sections himself. That declaration covered every contravention except one. According to the judgment, the regulator's pleaded case was that he ran the operation: he hired the staff, directed their work, was responsible for paying them, and was a person responsible for terminating one of them. For anyone who manages a payroll or a team, that is the headline. A company structure does not automatically put a hands-on...
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