A fake invoice, lies and an alleged bribe offer – dishonest director ordered to pay $19,009

4 September 2025
A fake invoice, lies and an alleged bribe offer – dishonest director ordered to pay $19,009

A company director has been ordered to pay $19,009 in penalties and costs after providing false or misleading information to the Labour Hire Authority (LHA) when applying for a labour hire licence.

The Dandenong Magistrates’ Court found that director Korb Tin gave false information to LHA that he was not involved in another labour hire business and supplied a false invoice to support his licence application.

The repeated breaches of the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2018 (Vic) occurred over several months, in response to LHA requests for information.

The Court stated that if not for Mr Tin’s early guilty plea, he would have been issued a higher penalty, closer to the maximum of $25,000.

Mr Tin had applied for a labour hire licence for his business 889 KSK Pty Ltd (KSK) to operate in the horticulture industry.

When assessing an application, LHA may make enquiries to test whether a business and its relevant persons are fit and proper and compliant with relevant laws, including labour hire laws.

“Ensuring we have fit and proper people running Victorian labour hire companies is an important way of protecting workers and improving the industry’s integrity,” said Labour Hire Licensing Commissioner Steve Dargavel.

While KSK’s application was being assessed, Mr Tin provided false information to LHA on three occasions, advising that he was not involved in his wife’s labour hire business, Korbkorb9 Labour Hire Pty Ltd (Korbkorb9).

However, Mr Tin was found by the Court to have had an interest in and performed work for his wife’s labour hire business, Korbkorb9, at the time of applying for a licence for KSK.

The Court also found Mr Tin provided a falsified invoice for the purchase of equipment. This was designed to mask that a payment into KSK’s account was actually for payment of labour hire services by a host orchard to Korbkorb9 that had been arranged by Mr Tin.

An improper proposal

Until a business’s licence application has been assessed and granted by LHA, it is unlawful for that business to provide labour hire services in Victoria.

The Court heard that Mr Tin attempted to contact LHA officers in September 2022 to query the progress of KSK’s licence application. This included an alleged offer that if an LHA officer granted KSK’s licence, Mr Tin would “do something for them.”

Two days after this alleged offer, the LHA officer received a text message from the same phone number saying “…do you want me pay 10k first I can go bendego (sic) thank you.”

The alleged offer of payment was not accepted, and KSK’s licence application was refused.

The LHA officer immediately escalated the matter within LHA, and the apparent offer of payment to the officer was reported to Victoria Police and the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. It is an offence in Victoria to attempt to bribe a public official, punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment.

“We do not tolerate improper or unlawful behaviour by labour hire providers, and we have highly trained staff and rigorous processes in place to identify and address unlawful conduct,” said Commissioner Dargavel.

Actions for hosts – protect your business

While not alleged in the case against Mr Tin, licence fraud has been identified by LHA as an emerging issue.

This can expose hosts to the risk of involvement with criminal elements, and of participating directly in unlawful conduct.

Licence fraud can typically involve providers:

  • producing fraudulent paper licences
  • doctoring digital files relating to their licensing status
  • claiming to be a specific licensed company without that provider's knowledge, then giving a host their own contact and bank details for payment.

Hosts can take two quick actions to protect their business and support LHA in working towards a fairer industry for businesses and workers:

For more information for hosts on how to protect their business when engaging labour hire, visit labourhireauthority.vic.gov.au/host