Hero Sushi at Kotara is one of three related food outlets to cop record penalties for underpaying workers and supplying false records to the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Hero Sushi outlets in Newcastle, Canberra and the Gold Coast were penalised a record total of $891,000 in the Federal Court on Monday.
The company that operates the Westfield Kotara Hero Sushi store, HSCC Pty Ltd, was fined $225,000 for underpaying mostly young overseas workers flat rates as low as $12 an hour.
The Kotara store underpaid 30 workers $215,000, including below-minimum hourly rates, casual loadings, penalty rates, overtime, clothing allowances and annual leave, over 15 months.
The court found that 94 workers across the three Hero Sushi outlets were underpaid $700,832.88 between April 2015 and July 2016.
Many of the workers were Korean and Japanese nationals on international student and working holiday visas.
In his judgment, Justice Geoffrey Flick said it was a case of "greed and the exploitation of the vulnerable".
"Those in a position to ruthlessly take advantage of others pursued their goal of seeking to achieve greater profits at the expense of employees," he said. "In doing so, a great number of false documents were deliberately and repeatedly created with a view to concealing the fraud being perpetrated.
"Lies were told to cover up the wrongdoing. It was only when the game was up that those responsible admitted their misdeeds."
Judge Flick said that "the quantum of the penalties to be imposed has to be such that they are not seen as simply the cost of doing business in the fast food industry".
The court also penalised company directors and owners Deuk Hee "William" Lee and Hokun "Robert" Hwang $85,000 each.
Three payroll officers employed at Hero Sushi head office, Chang Seok "Tommy" Lee, Ji Won "Brian" Cho and Jung Sun "Jimmy" Kim, were penalised $75,000, $16,000 and $30,000 respectively.
The operators provided Fair Work inspectors with hundreds of pages of false records across 11 separate occasions, showing inaccurate hours of work and pay rates.
The companies have paid back money to employees they have been able to find and paid other money to the FWO to be held in trust.
