A Melbourne-based finance brokerage has been hit with a massive penalty after exploiting vulnerable workers, including migrants.
Melbourne finance brokerage Ansa Finance, another company, and their manager Joshua Fuoco have been penalised $478,880 after exploiting vulnerable workers, including migrants, and dismissing two employees who sought unpaid entitlements.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court imposed $233,100 against Ansa Finance, $173,160 against AFSL Group, and $72,620 against Fuoco, who manages both Toorak businesses.
Announced by the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), the outcome marks the third time Ansa Finance and Fuoco have received court penalties following the regulator’s action.
The penalties sit alongside an earlier order requiring the companies to rectify $30,817 in underpayments to four employees, plus interest and superannuation.
Ansa Finance brokers short-term personal loans. Three affected employees worked for Ansa and one for AFSL Group, performing insurance, broking, and customer relationship management duties during various periods in 2021 and 2022.
Three were visa holders from India and Nepal, while the fourth was an Australian university student, then aged 20, whose $14,336 underpayment was the largest individual shortfall.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth condemned the treatment of migrant employees and warned that exploitation would attract substantial consequences.
“There is no place in Australian workplaces for exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers, and employers who do so will face legal action and significant penalties,” Booth said.
Unpaid work, then dismissal
The companies largely underpaid employees by withholding payment for some or all of their work. Two workers were subsequently dismissed after requesting outstanding entitlements, breaching the Fair Work Act’s adverse action provisions.
Booth said those dismissals represented an unacceptable response to employees exercising their workplace rights.
“The termination of two of the workers for requesting payment of entitlements they were lawfully owed was appalling conduct. Neither we as the national regulator nor the courts tolerate such adverse action – workers have a right to raise enquiries or complaints about their pay without negative consequences,” Booth said.
The AFSL Group employee received no payment for four months’ work, despite being owed $6,884 in wages and entitlements.
Judge Janine Young’s penalty judgment recounted the employee’s evidence about the hardship following her dismissal for seeking payment.
“She was unemployed for six months, was in ‘significant financial difficulty’ and had to rely on her parents sending money from India and friends and family in Australia loaning her money to survive,” the judge said.
The judge also recorded the worker’s account of how the experience affected her career.
“[The worker]’s evidence is that she found her experience with [AFSL Group] so upsetting that she no longer works in the finance industry ...,” the judge said.
Although written contracts promised above-award rates, the companies failed to meet obligations under the Banking, Finance and Insurance Award 2020 and National Employment Standards.
Shortfalls covered minimum hourly pay, public holidays, annual and personal leave, termination notice and contractual wage entitlements.
The companies also breached payment-frequency and payslip requirements and failed to comply with an inspector’s notices to produce documents or records. Fuoco was an accessory to most of the companies’ breaches.
Court condemns repeated exploitation
Judge Young also found deliberate exploitation of vulnerable employees, criticising the “habitual non-compliance” of Fuoco and Ansa Finance.
She found their conduct placed their interests ahead of workers’ rights and undermined the regulatory system.
“It demonstrates a disregard for the employees’ lawful statutory entitlements and a sustained willingness to prioritise their own interests at the expense of their employees’ entitlements and workplace rights, and a cavalier disregard for the integrity of the Fair Work regulatory system,” the judge said.
Explaining the penalties against Fuoco and Ansa Finance, Young said they reflected the “serious, deliberate, repeated, systematic and exploitative nature” of the contraventions.
“I accept the submission of the FWO that based on [Mr Fuoco’s] past conduct and his ongoing role in multiple corporations there is a real likelihood that he may employ staff again and that specific deterrence is required,” the judge said.
The previous two FWO cases resulted in combined penalties of $99,900 against Ansa Finance and Fuoco in 2024.
The earlier proceedings produced $83,250 in penalties against Ansa Finance and $16,650 against Fuoco.
Underpayments to those five workers were estimated at more than $17,000, with the court also ordering the business to meet its back payment obligations.
Separately, Fuoco received a 12-month prison sentence and was suspended for two years in 2025 for contempt of court after ASIC proceedings.
He also undertook never to participate in financial services or credit activities after ASIC permanently banned him from credit activities in September 2023.
[Related: Accountants arrested and charged as alleged loan fraud probe widens]
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