None of the three casual console operators at a United Petroleum outlet in Queenstown, in suburban Adelaide, ever complained to the regulator. Their unpaid entitlements surfaced instead through a proactive Fair Work Ombudsman investigation of the United Petroleum franchise network, and on 29 August 2025 Judge Brown of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia ordered the franchisee, SAI Enterprises Pty Ltd, to pay a penalty of $35,000 and its manager, Raman Monga, to pay $3,500.
SAI Enterprises operated the fuel and convenience outlet under licence from United Petroleum, with the site open to customers seven days a week between 5.00 am and 11.00 pm. The three workers, each on a student visa, worked about 15 hours a week as console operators between June 2020 and May 2021, covered by the Vehicle Repair, Services and Retail Award 2020.
At a glance
- Parties: Fair Work Ombudsman v SAI Enterprises Pty Ltd (first respondent) and Raman Monga (second respondent)
- Citation: [2025] FedCFamC2G 1372, Judge Brown, 29 August 2025
- Section: ss 44, 45, 536(1) and 550 of the Fair Work Act 2009; clause 10.3 of the Vehicle Repair, Services and Retail Award 2020
- Outcome: $35,000 penalty against the company; $3,500 against the manager as an accessory
- Who it affects: Fuel retail franchise operators and small employers who rely on external payroll providers
The company admitted three categories of contravention. It failed to make written part-time agreements with each worker at engagement, as clause 10.3 of the award requires, contravening s.45. It failed to pay accrued annual leave on termination under s.90(2), contravening s.44, in amounts of $813.57, $293.00 and $1,562.00 including leave loading. And on 19 occasions it failed to give payslips within one working day of payment, contravening s.536(1).
The leave amounts were repaid on 14 June 2023, after the Ombudsman’s inspectors had visited the site but before the formal contravention finding issued on 11 July 2023. Judge Brown found the sums were “not trifling amounts” for the workers, and that without the Ombudsman’s wider investigation the shortfall was unlikely ever to have been detected. On the payslip failures, his Honour adopted an observation of Judge Riethmuller in an earlier case, Fair Work Ombudsman v Taj Palace Tandoori Indian Restaurant Pty Ltd:
“Without proper payslips, employees are significantly disempowered, creating a structure within which breaches of the industrial laws can easily be perpetrated.”
Mr Monga was found liable as an accessory under s.550 (a provision that makes a person who is knowingly involved in a company’s contravention personally liable for it). He gave evidence that the failures were errors arising from his reliance on an external accounting firm, Taxxed, which he believed was issuing payslips through MYOB and would advise him of obligations such as termination payments. The Ombudsman submitted he should not be permitted to attribute blame in this way. Judge Brown agreed, finding Mr Monga had a “practical connection” to the contraventions given his managerial responsibility for payroll and record keeping: “In the vernacular, the buck stopped with him.” His Honour observed that in the industrial context, lack of care and ignorance of the law can be no excuse.
The main contest at the penalty hearing on 14 May 2025 was quantum. Before the defence was filed, the respondents had offered to resolve the matter by an enforceable undertaking (a legally binding compliance agreement a regulator accepts instead of going to court) involving contrition payments of $15,000 from the company and $5,000 from Mr Monga. The Ombudsman declined.
that penalties of $62,000 for the company and $5,700 for Mr Monga were at “the lower end of the range” but carried enough “sting” to deter Mr Monga personally and other employers in fuel retail, an industry in which, an FWO report indicated, exploitation of vulnerable employees is prevalent.
that the offending was characterised by inadvertence, lack of knowledge and mistake, that neither respondent remained in the fuel retail industry, and that penalties of $5,000 and $1,000 were open to the court.
the Ombudsman’s figures “unduly harsh” and the respondents’ “unduly lenient”. His Honour started at 15 per cent of the maximum penalties, discounted by 30 per cent for cooperation, then reduced the totals further to $35,000 and $3,500 given the respondents’ financial circumstances, describing them as “very significant penalties in dollar terms” that would provide a significant level of general deterrence.
In mitigation, the court accepted that neither respondent had a prior record, that there was no deliberate exploitation, and that Mr Monga had apologised to two of the workers (and attempted to contact the third), completed award compliance training at his own expense in mid 2024, and cooperated through a statement of agreed facts. United Petroleum abruptly terminated the franchise on 25 February 2025, ending the business’s trading, and Mr Monga was unemployed at the time of judgment.
- Dec 2020 FWO begins proactive investigation of United Petroleum franchisees.
- 24 Feb 2021 Fair Work Inspector first visits the Queenstown outlet.
- 14 Jun 2023 Unpaid annual leave repaid to the three workers.
- 11 Jul 2023 Formal contravention finding issued.
- 15 Dec 2023 FWO commences court proceedings.
- 14 May 2025 Penalty hearing in Adelaide.
- 29 Aug 2025 Penalties ordered, payable within 60 days.
The judgment recorded the context that drove the penalty despite the mitigation: a 2017 FWO inquiry found 40 per cent of 12 businesses checked were non-compliant, and migration visa holders were involved in close to 20 per cent of all disputes referred to the regulator. Judge Brown accepted there was a “heightened need for general deterrence” given the sector’s vulnerable, dispersed workforce, and found that in this case handing payroll to an external accountant did not relieve the manager of accessorial liability under s.550 for entitlements that went unpaid.
Source: [2025] FedCFamC2G 1372
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