Fair Work compliance failure leads to $135,000 penalty for employer
On 28 November 2025, an employer was ordered to pay a $135,000 penalty after proceedings involving non-compliance with two Fair Work compliance notices, failure to provide pay slips and failure to make or keep employee records.
The Fair Work Ombudsman published the outcome on 18 December 2025. The regulator's summary identifies the matter as involving an employer, but does not provide further incident details, an incident date, a court or tribunal name, or information about any affected workers.
What the regulator's summary records
The published information identifies three compliance failures:
- non-compliance with two compliance notices;
- failure to provide pay slips; and
- failure to make or keep employee records.
The recorded penalty was $135,000. The decision date was 28 November 2025 and the decision was described in the source as ex tempore, meaning the decision was delivered at the time of the proceeding. The available source does not include a detailed judgment or sentencing remarks.
This distinction matters. The available material supports reporting the listed nature of the proceedings and the penalty, but it does not support adding details about the underlying employment arrangements, the number of workers involved, the length of the alleged conduct or any particular payroll error.
Why this matters to business managers
Payroll and record-keeping obligations are not just administrative tasks. They are part of an employer's evidence that workers have been paid correctly and that the business can respond to regulatory enquiries.
A compliance notice also requires active management. Treating a notice as a document to be forwarded, filed or dealt with later can increase risk. The business needs to understand what is required, assign responsibility, collect the relevant information and meet the stated deadline.
Missing or incomplete records can make it difficult to establish what happened. This may affect the business's ability to answer questions about hours, rates, leave, deductions, pay arrangements and other employment matters. Pay slips are also an important communication record for workers and a practical check on payroll processes.
The broader management lesson is that compliance controls must operate before a regulator becomes involved. A business should be able to produce reliable records without undertaking an urgent reconstruction of its payroll history.
Practical controls for employers
Small and medium businesses can reduce avoidable compliance risk by putting clear ownership around employment records and regulatory correspondence.
1. Nominate a responsible owner
Assign a specific manager or role to oversee payroll compliance, employee records and Fair Work correspondence. The responsible person should have authority to obtain information from payroll, finance, HR and operational managers.
2. Use a compliance-notice process
Create a simple register for any notice or request received from a regulator. Record:
- the date received;
- the issuing regulator;
- what information or action is required;
- the response deadline;
- the person responsible; and
- evidence that the response was completed and submitted.
The register should be reviewed by a senior manager until the matter is closed.
3. Check pay-slip processes
Confirm that pay slips are generated and provided within the required timeframe for every pay cycle. Test whether the information is complete, readable and accessible to the worker. Keep evidence of the system or process used to issue them.
4. Maintain an employee-records checklist
The business should know what employee records it is required to make and keep, where those records are stored and who can access them. A periodic review can identify missing commencement details, hours, pay information, leave records or other payroll data before a problem escalates.
5. Reconcile payroll and time records
Where workers record hours, compare time records with payroll data at regular intervals. Investigate unexplained differences and document any corrections. This control is particularly important where payroll information is entered manually or gathered from multiple systems.
6. Test the process, not just the policy
A policy stating that records must be kept is not enough. Managers should periodically test whether a sample employee file and pay cycle can be produced promptly and consistently. Findings should be assigned to an owner with a completion date.
What managers should take note of
This matter is a reminder that employment compliance failures can combine into a significant financial and operational problem. The listed issues were not limited to one missing document: they involved regulatory notices, pay slips and employee records.
Managers should make sure their business can answer three questions:
- Who is responsible for responding to a Fair Work notice?
- Can the business produce complete employee and payroll records promptly?
- What evidence shows that pay slips are issued correctly and on time?
If the answer to any of these questions is unclear, the business should treat that as a control gap requiring attention. This article is general information only and is not legal advice.
Source information
- Regulator/source: Fair Work Ombudsman
- Source type: Regulator summary on the Fair Work Ombudsman litigation outcomes listing
- Decision date: 28 November 2025
- Publication date: 18 December 2025
- Source limitations: No court judgment, tribunal decision or sentencing remarks were attached to the supplied material. The available summary does not provide an incident date, court or tribunal name, affected-worker details or further narrative facts.
- Source URL: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/compliance-and-enforcement/litigation/2025-2026-litigation-outcomes#fwo-case-10fefabc83cb0a8e6fe4c7df