Finance director loses unfair dismissal case due to alleged lack of AASB expertise

A Melbourne-based finance director has failed to win his unfair dismissal case after the Fair Work Commission deemed it to be a genuine redundancy.

In May 2025, a Melbourne-based finance director was informed that he could be made redundant from his role at the education company where he worked.

Following his redundancy, which was finalised on 29 May 2025, the former director took an unfair dismissal case to the Fair Work Commission (FWC), arguing that the company had “designed a process to create the appearance of redundancy” and that he had been “personally targeted”.

In court, the company argued that it was a genuine redundancy. It said it needed to recruit a senior accountant who could prepare Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) compliant accounts, but could not afford to have both an accountant and a finance director, court documents said.

“[The financial controller] said that his review indicated that [the firm] required a senior accountant who was able to prepare AASB-compliant accounts, but that the company could not afford a senior accountant and a finance manager. The CEO decided to restructure the finance team accordingly,” court documents said.

He claimed that he could and should have been redeployed to the senior accountant role, despite the lower salary, because he was both qualified and willing to do it.

However, the company alleged that the finance director did not possess sufficient AASB skills to take on the senior accountant role. He denied this and claimed that “there was no reason why he could not have performed the role”.

The court disagreed with this argument, and the company was successful in making its case that the redundancy had been due to genuine business needs.

“I find that [the finance director] was not a suitable candidate for the new position because of the reasons cited in [the financial controller’s] evidence, including because he did not have the required level of understanding in respect of AASB compliant accounts,” court documents said.

“[The controller] gave several examples of how [the director] had demonstrated shortcomings in this area, in respect of GST, PAYG and BAS issues; [the director] did not dispute the examples given by [the controller] but said that he had addressed the relevant matters after they were raised. I find that these were objective reasons for [the controller’s] concerns about [the director’s] suitability for the new role.”

Court documents noted that the company had invited the financial controller to a meeting to discuss the potential redundancy and to discuss whether he could be reasonably redeployed to another role. The financial director put together a proposed restructure that would see him retain his role, but it had not aligned with the company’s needs, court documents said.

“[The financial controller] said that he then discussed [the financial director’s] proposal with the CEO, but that they considered it to be deficient: it would involve removing the accounts payable officer and would require the tasks of that role to be redistributed to the accounts officer and the new senior accountant role, which would mean that both of them would be stretched in an environment that was already challenging,” court documents said.

According to the FWC, a genuine redundancy could occur when an employer “no longer required the person’s job to be performed by anyone because of changes in the operational requirements of the employer’s enterprise” and “complied with any obligation in a modern award or enterprise agreement that applied to the employment to consult about the redundancy”.

Based on this criteria, the FWC determined that the finance director had been made redundant for genuine business reasons, and had been given adequate opportunity to consult regarding the redundancy.

The FWC was also unconvinced by the finance director’s argument that his role had still been needed, demonstrated by the fact that his former duties had been assigned to other workers.

“Positions are frequently redundant even though some or all of their functions may still be required,” court documents said.

“What is relevant for the purposes of s 389 of the act is whether the employer no longer wanted the employee’s job to be performed by anyone, not whether the duties of that job are still needed. It is a routine matter for the work of a redundant job to be reassigned to other workers.”