Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Ossama Khalifa

Forbidden City Ltd t/a Translation.ie

Representatives

Self-represented

Cathal McGreal BL instructed by Ferrys Solicitors LLP

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991

CA-00070208-001

24/03/2025

The complainant worked with the respondent as a freelance/independent contractor undertaking interpretation work from 12 September 2024 to 10 October 2024.

The complaint referred to the Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 was in respect of unpaid wages to the value of €937.00.  Under the complaint specific details, the complainant referred to continuous delayed payment by the respondent.

The respondent’s position was that it had paid the complainant well in excess of what he was due, and that accordingly the complaint is without merit.

The complainant raised various pay-related issues at the hearing, including matters outside the scope of jurisdiction.

In relation to the complaint under the Payment of Wages Act 1991, the complainant submitted that he had been paid €18.00 per hour but that he should have been paid €25.00 per hour.  He further raised an issue concerning late payment, including a payment in June 2025, and not having received payment in September 2024.  The complainant submitted that this delay in payment caused him hardship and that he ought to have received payment in time.

The respondent provides translation and interpreting services. 

The complainant was engaged by the respondent as an independent contractor.  If the complainant accepted and undertook an interpreting job for the respondent, he submitted invoices for payment by the respondent.

The complainant raised 3 invoices for the entire period he carried out work for the respondent, namely 12 September 2024 to 10 October 2024.   The respondent made 3 separate payments to the complainant in October 2024 in respect of the invoices raised in the amounts of €202, €591 and €136.   The 3 previously mentioned payments were calculated by the respondent using its standard hourly rates of €20 and €18 as applicable.

In an email of 25 November 2024, the complainant raised with the respondent an issue in relation to the payments he had received for the invoices.  The complainant referred to a total underpayment of €437.50 based on a differential between expected payment for total hours worked and the actual payment received.

The respondent paid additional sums to the complainant, including a payment of €937.00 on 3 June 2025, meaning that the total amount paid by the respondent of €1,927.00 exceeds the expected amount claimed by the complainant in his email of complaint of 25 November 2024.

The respondent made the €937.00 payment, without admission of liability, in an effort to resolve the matter to the satisfaction of the complainant and presuming that it would be sufficient for the complainant to withdraw the complaint before the Commission.  

The following facts were not in dispute.  The complainant was engaged by the respondent as an independent contractor to provide interpreting services.  The complainant carried out work for the respondent in the period 12 September 2024 to 10 October 2024 and raised 3 invoices in respect of the work/period.  The remittances and payments in October 2024 were for the complainant’s work in the previously mentioned period.  In an email of 25 November 2024, the complainant raised a payment discrepancy issue with the respondent in relation to amounts paid on foot of the 3 invoices and amounts the complainant asserted he should have been paid.  The complainant received further payments from the respondent in March, April and June 2025.

Relevant Law

Section 5 of the Payment of Wages Act 1991 (the “1991 Act”) prohibits deductions from wages save in certain specified circumstances. 

Section 5(6) of the 1991 Act on what constitutes a deduction provides as follows:-

“Where-

(a)    the total amount of any wages that are paid on any occasion by an employer to an employee is less than the total amount of wages that is properly payable by him to the employee on that occasion (after making any deductions therefrom that fall to be made and are in accordance with this Act), or

(b)    none of the wages that are properly payable to an employee by an employer on any occasion (after making any such deductions as aforesaid) are paid to the employee,

then, except in so far as the deficiency or non-payment is attributable to an error of computation, the amount of the deficiency or non-payment shall be treated as a deduction made by the employer from the wages of the employee on the occasion.”

Section 6(1) of the 1991 Act in relation to a decision on a complaint of a contravention of section 5 provides:-

“A decision of an adjudication officer under section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, in relation to a complaint of a contravention of section 4C or 5 as respects a deduction made by an employer from the wages or tips or gratuities of an employee or the receipt from an employee by an employer of a payment, that the complaint is, in whole or in part, well founded as respects the deduction or payment shall include a direction to the employer to pay to the employee compensation of such amount (if any) as he considers reasonable in the circumstances not exceeding—

(a) the net amount of the wages, or tips or gratuities as the case may be (after the making of any lawful deductions therefrom) that—

(i) in case the complaint related to a deduction, would have been paid to the employee in respect of the week immediately preceding the date of the deduction if the deduction had not been made, or

(ii) in case the complaint related to a payment, were paid to the employee in respect of the week immediately preceding the date of payment,

Or

(b)if the amount of the deduction or payment is greater than the amount presented to paragraph (a), twice the former amount.”

Findings

This complaint was referred to the Commission on 24 March 2025.  In accordance with section 41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015, the cognisable period or period the subject of this adjudication is the period from 25 September 2024 to 24 March 2025.

The complainant was engaged by the respondent under a contract of employment within the meaning of section 1 of the 1991 Act.

At the hearing, the complainant submitted that he ought to have been paid €25.00 per hour.  The respondent disputed any entitlement to this rate and further submitted that the complainant had never asserted this rate at any point prior to the hearing.

In deciding this complaint of a deduction in contravention of the 1991 Act, I must firstly determine wages properly payable to the complainant.  The issue of delayed payment was raised in the complaint form.  I am satisfied, based on section 5(6) of the 1991 Act and the reference to ‘occasion’, that properly payable wages mean payment of wages to which the complainant was properly entitled and at the time they fell due for payment. 

The complaint referred to the Commission was of €937.00 wages not received.   I am unclear as to the basis for this figure and am not satisfied of its accuracy based on the undisputed evidence before me concerning the hours of work and payments made, and the complainant’s submission that he was entitled to an hourly rate of €25.00.

The complainant’s email of 25 November 2024 raised the matter of a payment discrepancy; it set out the monetary value/amount that the complainant had expected to receive on foot of the invoices raised and the actual amount received.  The total pay discrepancy put forward in this email was of €437.50 and, based on the hours of work detail, was clearly referable to the 3 invoices submitted by the complainant for work in September and October 2024.  The expected payment put forward by the complainant, based on the total hours worked, equates to an hourly rate of in or around €25.00, which was acknowledged by the respondent in its written submissions. 

I have very carefully reviewed the 3 invoices raised by the complainant and the 6 remittance payment records before me.  The invoices detail hours of work but make no reference to an hourly rate or monetary amount due.  The remittance dates, including the payment date referable in the memo of the remittance, all fall within the cognisable period.  The remittance records reflect a business hours rate and an after-hours rate.  The business hours rate was detailed, for the most part, as €18.00 per hour although there was occasion when it was calculated by reference to €20.00 per hour.  The after-hours rate was calculated at €20.00 per hour.

I find that wages to the complainant in respect of work undertaken on 13 September 2024 and 19 September 2024, included in the undated invoice for September work, were properly payable to the complainant under the remittance dated 11 October 2024, and which wages were not paid until 24 March 2025 (remittance dated 20/03/2025) and 17 April 2025 (remittance dated 16 April 2025), and that this constitutes a contravention of section 5 of the 1991 Act.

In terms of the hourly rate of €25.00 asserted by the complainant, I am not satisfied on the information before me that this rate was properly payable to the complainant.  I have considered the remittance dated 16 April 2025, referred to above, and the fact that it records an hourly rate of €25.00 however the background to this remittance is relevant, namely its processing further to the complainant’s email of 25 November 2025 and after referral of the complaint to the Commission.  In the circumstances, I cannot find that this stand-alone remittance recording a €25.00 hourly rate establishes that this was the rate properly payable to the complainant in respect of work done in September and October 2024.

I further accept based on the information before me, in particular the hours of work carried out by the complainant and the €25.00 hourly rate asserted by the complainant and which formed the basis for the November 2024 email, that the remittance dated 3 June 2025 of €937.00 was a payment by the respondent in compromise of the complaint referred by the complainant to the Commission on 24 March 2025, as submitted on behalf of the respondent.

I therefore find that the complaint of a contravention of section 5 of the 1991 Act is in part well founded, namely that wages properly payable to the complainant in the October 2024 remittance were not paid.  In accordance with section 6 of the 1991 Act, I direct nil compensation which I consider reasonable in the circumstances of a payment made to the complainant in June 2025 following referral of his complaint to the Commission which payment was compensatory in nature.   

For the reasons set out above, I decide that this complaint under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 is in part well founded and I direct nil compensation.

Payment of Wages Act 1991 – Properly payable – Compensation