Yeo and Secretary, Attorney-General's Department

This matter concerned an appeal by Mr Yeo against a decision made by the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department regarding an advance payment made to him under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee (FEG). The dispute centred on whether Mr Yeo was entitled to redundancy pay upon the termination of his employment with Castel, a company that had subsequently gone into liquidation.

The primary legal issue before the Court was whether Mr Yeo possessed a redundancy pay entitlement under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) at the time of his employment termination. This determination was crucial for calculating the correct amount of the FEG advance, as the legislation excludes redundancy pay from such advances if no such entitlement exists.

The Court found that Castel was a small business employer on 25 January 2018, the relevant date for assessing employee numbers, as it had fewer than 15 employees at that time. Consequently, Mr Yeo had no entitlement to redundancy pay under the Fair Work Act. The Court reasoned that because no redundancy pay entitlement existed, the FEG advance made to Mr Yeo was correctly calculated without regard to any such entitlement. The decision under review was therefore affirmed.