Footy legend Darren Lockyer is embroiled in a $21 million legal battle that could force him to pay massive damages
- Darren Lockyer has been named as a defendant in a Brisbane lawsuit
- The former Broncos star was part owner of a mining company
- The company went bankrupt in 2018 with a loss of $21 million
NRL great Darren Lockyer has been hit with a damages case over an alleged dereliction of duty as managing director of a mining labor hire company he used to part-own.
In a lawsuit filed May 31 in the Brisbane High Court, the receiver of One Key Workforce Pty Ltd (OKW) alleges that Lockyer breached the duties of its directors to gain an advantage for another company, OKR Coal .
The former Queensland and Broncos captain is one of seven defendants, along with OKR Coal, who must pay damages, according to OKW.
According to the Courier Mail, the trustee has also asked the court to order fellow directors Grant Bernard Wechsel, Jonathan James Johnson, Stuart Andrew Hall and Dhirendra Shantilal to pay OKR compensation for the alleged breaches.
Johnson and Hall are both based in Great Britain, while Shantilal is based in Singapore.
Darren Lockyer has been hit with a damages suit over an alleged dereliction of duty as a director of a mining labor company he used to partially own
OKW suffered losses of approximately $21 million before being liquidated in 2018 for owning millions in payments to its former “casual” staff.
Most of the company’s 2,300 employees in engineering and production roles in the coal mining industry were employed on a temporary basis. But from November 2017 to August 2018, over 900 OKW employees joined OKR Coal.
However, the company’s corporate agreement was overturned in court after it was declared invalid by the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union.
The union argued that the agreement should not stand because it had been voted on by only a small number of employees.
As a result of the court’s ruling, thousands of temporary workers fell back on the industry award, which prohibits temporary workers who have subsequently been converted into permanent staff.
“The migration of OKW’s workforce to OKR Coal was not in OKW’s best interest, resulting in OKW losing a valuable asset, its workforce, without realizing the value of its workforce, and was highly beneficial to OKR Coal , and for its shareholders (…) in that OKR Coal acquired the workforce without having to pay anything to OKW,” the claim reads.
“In inducing or allowing OKW to participate in the migration of the OKW workforce to OKR Coal, each of the directors failed to take into account, or did not adequately consider, the interests of OKW’s creditors.
Lockyer (left) was part of the Channel Nine commentary team after retiring from football
Lockyer (right) won four premierships with the Broncos under Wayne Bennett (left)
‘Each of the directors acted contrary to (company law) by not acting in the best interests of the OKW.’
The trustee has also taken law firm Ashurst Australia to court, claiming it caused or contributed to OKW’s $21 million loss through breach of contract and negligence.
In the lawsuit, OKR alleges that the $21 million consists of the loss of market value of the OKW workforce of $6.3 million and $14.9 million due to additional debt owed to the workforce.
The latter figure would consist of benefits provided for in the industry price, but not in the company agreement over a ten-month period up to August 2018.