Statement from Slater and Gordon CEO Dina Tutungi

Slater and Gordon has identified an issue regarding the rate at which leave was accrued for at least 100 of our current and former employees who have taken leave at half pay between 2011 and 2023.

Instead of the leave accrual being calculated on a full-time basis for those employees, the Firm’s payroll system accrued leave on a pro-rata basis. We currently believe that this error resulted in a collective underpayment of at least $300,000.

We apologise for what has occurred. We know we have let our people down.

We will repay the full entitlements of all those who were underpaid, with interest, and we will credit the leave balances of our current employees who have been affected.

The Board has appointed KordaMentha to review the Firm’s internal reconciliation and to independently investigate the full extent of the issue, including whether any other staff have been affected.

While this investigation continues, we are able to provide the following information:

• We have reported the underpayments and understated leave balances to the Fair Work Ombudsman.
• We believe the leave accrual errors took place between November 2011 and May 2023 and disproportionately affected employees who have taken parental leave and elected to take this at half pay.
• The system issue was first identified by Slater and Gordon’s payroll team in May 2023, who immediately corrected the system configuration and informed their team leadership.
• An internal team undertook a complex and manual reconciliation of current and historical employee payroll and leave records, which was necessary to understand the nature and extent of the issue. This reconciliation was completed in May 2024 and is currently being verified by KordaMentha.
• Slater and Gordon engages independent experts to undertake regular payroll compliance audits, however, this error was not identified.
• Slater and Gordon is engaging with the Australian Services Union (ASU) to advise them about what has occurred and what we are doing to fix it.
• The ASU has been offered full transparency to ensure the union is able to satisfy itself that the reconciliation and remediation work is comprehensive and accurate.

We know how important it is for the pay and entitlements for all our people to be correct and we are committed to getting this right.

Slater and Gordon is a Firm that was founded to protect and defend workers’ rights. Our people are driven by helping those who need it most.

I am proud to lead them, and nothing will change our focus on delivering access to justice for our clients.