Nara Lounge labour-hire firm liquidated owing $125K; its director was fined

NLHR Management Pty Ltd supplied workers to the Nara Lounge restaurant-and-shisha outlets at Hurstville and Pendle Hill in Sydney between 2022 and 2024 - among them several visa holders and young workers. Fair Work inspectors auditing the Hurstville outlet found the workers underpaid minimum wage rates for ordinary hours, penalty rates for weekend and public-holiday work, and annual leave under the Restaurant Industry Award 2020 and the National Employment Standards. A compliance notice issued in December 2024 required $127,467 in back-payments, individual amounts between $60 and $10,459.

The company did not comply. The Federal Circuit and Family Court penalised sole director Simon Jabbour $8,415 for his involvement in the failure to act on the notice - Judge Sheila Kaur-Bains citing specific deterrence: Jabbour directs 10 other companies that may employ staff. NLHR has gone into liquidation, leaving $125,241 plus superannuation still owed to 53 workers, and both Nara Lounge outlets have closed. Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said that when compliance notices are not followed the regulator will keep taking legal action, with protecting migrant workers a stated priority.

The structure is the story: the workers were employed not by the lounges but by a labour-hire company, so when the underpayment surfaced, the entity holding the debt could simply collapse - leaving the regulator chasing a shell while the venues it staffed closed around the claim. The director's penalty is the regulator's answer to that manoeuvre.

$127,467 in back-pay ordered; $125,241 plus super still owed to 53 workers after liquidation; $8,415 court penalty on the director.

The workers were structurally exposed: labour-hire staff, several on visas and young, in a sector the FWO has flagged for exploitation.

Underpayment ran across the award's main heads - ordinary minimum rates, weekend and public-holiday penalties, and annual leave.

Ignoring the compliance notice is what triggered court action; the notice stage was the cheap exit the company declined.

Liquidation stranded the debt, so the regulator pursued the director personally, and the court imposed the penalty for deterrence.

Ignoring a regulator's compliance notice converts a wage debt into a personal penalty - and liquidation does not wash the director's involvement away.

The FWO secured the $8,415 penalty, announced on 13 October 2026, but says NLHR's liquidation has restricted its ability to recover the $125,241 still owed to 53 workers, plus superannuation. Jabbour remains a director of 10 other companies, and Booth warned that directors involved in failing to act on compliance notices can be penalised personally.