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SINGAPORE – Artiste Jaime Teo Chai-lin, 43, was fined $ 65,000 on Tuesday (March 9) for failing to prevent Twelve Cupcakes, a local confectionery chain she co-founded, from paying its foreign workers less.
The Singaporean, who is also a former model, pleaded guilty on February 4-10 to the charges under the Foreign Labor Employment Act.
During the sentencing, fourteen other charges were taken into consideration.
Teo, who founded the firm in 2011 with ex-radio DJ Daniel Ong Ming Yu, 45, her husband at the time, admitted that he had been negligent.
The court heard that wage arrears totaling $ 98,900 since the couple owned the business remain outstanding to date.
Teo and Ong sold the company to Kolkata-based Dhunseri Group for $ 2.5 million in 2016.
The prosecutor for the Ministry of Human Resources, Maximilian Chew, told the court that Teo and Ong jointly decided to hire foreign workers in 2012.
Seven of them (four customer service executives, two sales executives and a pastry chef) received an insufficient salary between 2013 and 2016.
For example, the pastry chef, who was supposed to receive a monthly salary of $ 2,300 in mid-2014, received $ 1,600 instead and continued to receive a lower salary until mid-2016.
The other six foreigners also received less than they were supposed to owe.
Teo was represented by attorneys Sunil Sudheesan and Diana Ngiam.
In mitigation, her attorneys told the court that their client had never played a decision-making role in the human resources (HR) aspect of the business when she was a director of Twelve Cupcakes.
They said that Teo did not know at the time that there were differences between the wage amounts declared in the employment contracts and the actual amounts the workers received.
On January 12, Twelve Cupcakes, under its current owner, was fined $ 119,500 for underpaying seven of its foreign employees, including one worker who sometimes received only half the salary.
The company was convicted on December 10 of last year on 15 counts of paying employees less in 2017 and 2018.
Ong was charged with 24 counts under the Act last year and his case is still pending.
For each count under the Act, an offender can be jailed for up to one year and fined up to $ 10,000.
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