Meatball and Wine Bar eyes legal action against Fair Work Ombudsman
The owner of Melbourne’s Meatball and Wine Bar is looking at legal action against the Fair Work Ombudsman after the Court found the industry body caused the business reputational harm.
Fair Work has investigated Matteo Bruno over allegations of underpayments to employees, resulting in the restaurant paying $31,320 in penalties. However, the court found a Fair Work Ombudsman press release’s claims the potential breaches showed a “deliberate disregard for worker’s entitlements” had caused negative publicity leading to injury.
Bruno maintained the underpayments were not deliberate, and the bad press stemming from the release resulted in a $200,000 drop in profits in the following quarter.
“It is significant that the applicant [the Ombudsman] made claims of deliberate wrongdoing against Mr Matteo and the Respondent in circumstances where that allegation was challenged and that issue had not been determined by the Court,” Judge Alister McNab said in his findings.
“The matters were not reported as allegations but as a factual statement.”
Speaking to SmartCompany, Bruno claimed the Ombudsman was making an example out of him, despite the court finding he cooperated with its investigation.
“Employees were paid and apologised to … [after] we were notified of the underpayments,” he said. “They assumed we were a big chain and wanted to get a scalp.”
“The [legal action] was a really harsh thing for them to go and do based on the fact that we had complied with every one of their request.”
Sheridan Randall, 17th September 2018
