Dismissal starts when staff actually see the email, Fair Work rules
A termination email sent to the wrong address left IPSOS facing a workplace claim it thought had already expired.
In a decision handed down on February 23, 2026, Fair Work Commission Commissioner Sloan ruled that global research firm IPSOS Pty Ltd had inadvertently pushed back its own dismissal date by sending a termination notice to a former employee's outdated email address.
The case turned on a deceptively simple question: when does a dismissal actually take effect? The answer has real consequences for every employer managing a staff exit.
IPSOS sent Ms Lim her termination notice on October 17, 2025, and treated that as the date her employment ended. Under the Fair Work Act 2009, dismissed employees have 21 days to lodge a general protections application – a workplace rights claim with no cap on compensation. That deadline, by IPSOS's reckoning, fell on November 7, 2025. Ms Lim filed on November 10, 2025 – three days late, the company argued.
There was one problem. The termination email had gone to Ms Lim's old address – one she no longer regularly checked. Correspondence between the two parties in the weeks before the dismissal had been flowing to and from her new address. Ms Lim said she did not see the termination notice until November 9, 2025.
Commissioner Sloan believed her. "Having regard to the parties' evidence and submissions, I accept Ms Lim's evidence and find that she first saw the...
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