Michael Seck

Commonwealth Bank of Australia and subsidiary CommSec have been hit with $10.34 million in penalties — the highest ever imposed in enforcement action by the workplace regulator — after admitting it underpaid thousands of employees more than $16 million.

A former National Rugby League referee has lost his unfair dismissal lawsuit alleging he suffered bullying and victimisation, with a judge finding the league did not terminate his employment but “acted passively” in letting his contract term end.

Ten wants to stay a sex discrimination claim brought by journalist Tegan George in light of separate personal injury proceedings seeking damages from the broadcaster over PTSD allegedly caused by reporting from the 2019-2020 bushfires.

CBA should pay a penalty of $12.8 million — close to the maximum penalty the court can impose on the bank — for underpaying its staff to the tune of $16.4 million, a judge has heard.

A judge has panned as “thoroughly unsatisfactory” a draft notice informing group members in an underpayments class action against the federal government that only claims on behalf of postgraduate research students at the University of Sydney will continue.

The Full Court has held a Sydney Trains driver who worked the morning after blowing over four times the legal limit is entitled to a rehearing, finding the Fair Work Commission failed to properly consider a section of its own founding legislation. 

On the first day of trial in parallel class actions and regulatory proceedings, the Fair Work Ombudsman panned the payment systems adopted by Woolworths and Coles for salaried managers, saying they were “entirely foreign” to the industrial award and that the supermarket giants had “no meaningful proper records” for overtime. 

Network Ten has fired back at journalist Tegan George’s reworked sex discrimination case, claiming that its alleged failure to prevent a “sexually hostile, demeaning and oppressive” culture was not unlawful under the Fair Work Act.

Journalist Tegan George has reworked her sex discrimination case against Network Ten, claiming the Canberra bureau had a culture that was “sexually hostile, demeaning and oppressive”.

The federal government’s bid to shut down an underpayments class action on behalf of postgraduate research candidates at universities across Australia remains to be heard after a judge rejected the self-represented applicant’s bid to strike out the strike-out application.