The director hid his income and his house - the court found both
An accounting firm and its sole director have been hit with $109,000 in combined penalties for contravening virtually every workplace obligation owed to a single employee over 16 months.
The NSW Industrial Court handed down the penalty decision on October 30, 2026, in Ahmed v Jazaa Accountants Pty Ltd (No 2) [2026] NSWIC 66. Liability had already been determined in a separate judgment in July 2026.
Unpaid, unrecorded, overworked
The worker, a temporary visa holder whose first language was not English, was engaged by Jazaa Accountants from around February 2023. The parties initially agreed he would work as a volunteer, but by June 2023 the arrangement had shifted to paid employment. He left the firm on July 8, 2024.
During that period, the court found the firm failed to pay the national minimum wage, failed to make superannuation contributions, failed to pay annual leave on termination, failed to issue pay slips, failed to keep employee records, and required the worker to put in unreasonable additional hours.
The court described the breaches as encompassing the "full spectrum" of the worker's entitlements under the Fair Work Act.
Payments were sporadic - a mix of cash and bank transfers - leaving the worker more than $23,100 short on wages alone. He received no superannuation contributions at all during his employment.
The worker gave evidence that the underpayment forced him into debt and left him unable to cover day-to-day expenses. He supplemented his income by driving for Uber on weekends, but the excessive hours at the firm left him too fatigued to take those shifts, particularly on Friday evenings.
There was also a visa dimension. Without pay slips or employment records, the worker was unable to obtain a skills assessment he understood was necessary for a permanent residency pathway.
'I didn't appreciate the seriousness'
The firm's sole director gave evidence that he did not "set out to deliberately deprive" the worker of his entitlements and that he did not "appreciate the seriousness of the statutory obligations concerning employment records and pay slips." He maintained that he believed payroll was being properly managed because the worker had access to the accounting system and was involved in payroll-related work.
The court was not persuaded.
It found that as an accountant, the director must have been aware of the importance of paying employees correctly and maintaining proper records. The firm had operated almost entirely in breach of the Fair Work Act for the duration of its existence - at least insofar as this worker was concerned.
On remorse, the court found the director's expressions of regret did not extend beyond the personal consequences for himself. He had not acknowledged the impact of his conduct on the worker. The court also noted that the director's description of superannuation obligations as "not properly dealt with" entirely misrepresented what had happened. There had been no attempt at all to make superannuation payments during the worker's employment.
The director's finances told their own story
When the penalty hearing began, the director initially stated he earned approximately $52,000 per year. Updated financial statements later revealed his actual income was $86,863, comprising director's fees and wages.
He also did not disclose that he owned a property until the worker's solicitor conducted a title search and raised it. Published estimates valued the property at between $1.02 million and $1.22 million, subject to a mortgage of approximately $634,000.
The court noted that the firm's financial accounts were unaudited - effectively a "self-report." Given the initial understatement of the director's income and the non-disclosure of the property, the court found it difficult to be satisfied of the accuracy of the financial evidence and declined to reduce penalties on that basis.
What it cost them
The court imposed $90,000 in penalties on Jazaa Accountants - approximately 12.5% of the combined maximum penalty of $719,900. The director was personally penalised $19,000, approximately 13% of his combined maximum of $143,980. Both amounts were ordered payable to the worker within 90 days.
Separate compensation orders for unpaid wages and annual leave totalling more than $25,500, plus interest, had been made in July 2026. As at September 30, 2026, the firm had paid just $2,000 of that amount. It had proposed an instalment arrangement for the compensation debt, which the worker rejected.
In setting the penalties, the court applied what is known as the totality principle - a final check to make sure the combined penalties are proportionate to the overall conduct, rather than just stacking each breach on top of the last. That reduced the aggregate, but the court held the final figure still needed to send a clear deterrence message to other small employers.
The firm had approximately three employees and an annual turnover of around $345,000. Even so, the court found that the Fair Work Act does not scale its expectations with business size. A start-up with no compliance systems is not excused simply because it is small.
For HR teams and business owners watching this space, the practical takeaway is blunt: the cost of getting workplace compliance wrong from day one can dwarf the cost of getting it right.
