Commonwealth Bank has been fined $36,000 in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court after pleading guilty to not paying long service entitlements to staff.
ABC reports Wage Inspectorate Victoria alleged in 2022 that BankWest and CommSec failed to pay more than $69,000 in long service leave entitlements to 23 former employees.
In Monday's court hearing that was reduced to 17.
"Inadvertence or system failures are not to be [given as] an answer to an inability to pay employee entitlements," Magistrate Fawcett said in sentencing.
"While there is complexity in long service leave provisions across state and federal [laws], that explanation provides no appropriate excuse."
The magistrate said no conviction would be recorded because the Commonwealth Bank has no prior convictions for breaching long service laws in Victoria.
She imposed fines of $18,000 on both entities.
The magistrate said the bank's early guilty plea avoided what would have been an "aggregate fine of $40,000" for each entity.