Pay orders against Simon Kelly’s Emex rise to nearly €67,000

Tech entrepreneur Simon Kelly’s Emex has been ordered to pay its former finance chief nearly €47,000 after the employee went without pay for 3½ months.

It’s the second such ruling against Emex Software Ltd in two months and brings the total sums awarded to former staff at the company — a developer of risk management software — to nearly €67,000.

The Workplace Relations Commission upheld complaints by the company’s former vice-president for finance, Brendan Moran, under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 in a decision published on Friday.

A hearing was convened in the absence of any representative of the firm in June this year after adjudicating officer Hugh Lonsdale satisfied himself that Emex was on notice.

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Mr Moran said that he got only half his salary in October 2022 and nothing at all for his work from the start of November 2022 to the end of January 2023.

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The complainant said that at the end of January last, he “contacted Simon Kelly, the owner of [Emex] and was advised his best option was to cease employment”, he said in evidence.

Mr Moran said his access to the company’s systems was “immediately removed” at this point but that he did not get the month’s notice pay due to him under his contract terms.

The complainant said he was due €36,459 in unpaid salary, €10,417 for notice pay, €3,021 in vouched expenses and a €554 mobile phone bill — along with further sums for a pension contribution and commission payments.

“I have no reason not to believe any of the evidence [Mr Moran] provided,” wrote adjudicating officer Hugh Lonsdale in his decision.

He noted that the complainant’s contract had provided for a bonus payment, but that Mr Moran had not been in a position to provide any evidence he had hit those targets — and that he was therefore unable to make a finding on that point.

He found Mr Moran was entitled to recover €46,876 for the salary and notice pay portions under the Payment of Wages Act and made an order to that effect.

Order in excess of €20,000

The order by Mr Lonsdale follows an earlier ruling by fellow adjudicating officer Elizabeth Spelman in July on complaints by another Emex employee under the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997.

Analyst Aniko Knopp secured an order for €20,107 against the firm after Mr Kelly appeared before the tribunal and conceded her claims for unpaid salary and annual leave entitlements.

Mr Kelly — son of late property developer Paddy Kelly — told the tribunal on that occasion that the firm had been hit by economic downturn, recession and the war in Ukraine, which had left it with an “inability to raise capital and pay employees” since mid-2022.

That hearing was held a week before Mr Moran’s complaint was heard on June 13th.

The order in Mr Moran’s case brings the total awards against Emex to €66,983.