Melbourne glass company faces court over compo pay out; Pepperstone eyes cheap acquisitions; Midday Roundup

Melbourne-based glass repair company AAA Aussie Emergency Glass is facing court action over its failure to compensate an employee who was unfairly dismissed.

The Fair Work Commission ordered the company to pay $8000 compensation to a sales and marketing employee it found had been unfairly dismissed last year.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has now commenced legal proceedings as the employee did not received the sum within the required 21 days. The payment is still outstanding.

AAA Aussie Emergency Glass faces a maximum penalty of $51,000 and the Fair Work Ombudsman is also seeking an additional court order for the company to pay the outstanding compensation to the employee.

Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said in a statement the watchdog played an important role in enforcing orders issued by the Fair Work Commission.

Pepperstone eyes cheap acquisitions 

Foreign exchange brokerage firm Pepperstone says it will attempt to acquire its competitors for bargain prices in the wake of the Swiss central bank’s removal of its currency peg, reports Fairfax.

A 30% rally in the Swiss Franc after the country’s central bank removed a peg to the Euro triggered huge losses for forex investors and their brokers last Thursday.

Pepperstone co-founder Owen Kerr told Fairfax the company would capitalise on one of the biggest shock moves in the history of currency markets by shifting its focus to acquisitions. 

“There are a lot of cheap players out there and we may be ­focusing on that in the time being. It’s a unique opportunity. [Our focus is] ­picking up our competitors for cheap and building scale through acquisitions,” Kerr said. 

Shares up on open

Aussie shares have traded higher this morning, following a strong end to last week’s trade on Wall Street on Friday.

“The gains were probably a little lower than expected with trading today very much a shot cover rally in our beaten-up commodities stocks,” said Tristan K’Nell, head of trading at Quay Equities.

“The fact we have a host of events including Chinese GDP data released tomorrow as well as the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday is probably leaving a little uncertainty still in the air.” 

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 63.8 points to 5363 points at 12.09pm AEDT. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed 190.86 points higher, up 1.10% to 17511.6 points.