Coghill v Indochine Resources Pty Ltd (No 2)

The case of Coghill v Indochine Resources Pty Ltd (No 2) involved the plaintiff, Mr Coghill, who was employed by the defendant, Indochine Resources Pty Ltd (IRL), as chairman, company secretary and chief financial officer. Mr Coghill brought an action against IRL for breach of his employment contract and alleged that he was owed unpaid salary, superannuation, accrued annual leave, and other benefits. The court was required to decide whether the alleged entitlement to five years’ salary and other benefits under the contract constituted a genuine pre-estimate of damage or a penalty. The court also had to determine whether Mr Coghill was entitled to payment in lieu of written notice, whether his employment was terminated for serious misconduct, and whether the claim for damages was justified.

The court found that the defendant's case of serious misconduct was not supported by evidence and that Mr Coghill had an entitlement under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) to three weeks’ written notice of the day of the termination of his employment. The court concluded that IRL contravened s 117 of the Act by failing to give Mr Coghill that notice or pay him at least the amount it would have been liable to pay had the employment continued until the end of the minimum period of notice. The court held that there would be judgment in favour of Mr Coghill and that IRL should pay him damages for breach of his employment contract, together with interest.

The court ordered that judgment would be given in the foreign currency in which most of the amounts in question were payable. In accordance with the Foreign Judgments Act 1991 (Cth) and the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules (Qld), the court invited further submissions in writing on the amount of interest to be included in the judgment, whether declarations should be made, the proper form of the declarations, and whether Mr Coghill was entitled to all or part of his costs and, if so, the basis for that entitlement.

The court ordered that by 1 October 2015, the applicant file further submissions on the questions of pre-judgment interest, declaratory relief and costs. Entry of orders was dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.