In the recent related appeals of Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur Owned By Daito Asia Development (M) Sdn Bhd1 v Zulkarnain Bin Hussin2 and Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur Owned By Daito Asia Development (M) Sdn Bhd v Fairul Azwan Bin Mohd Ali3 , the High Court considered the issue whether the Labour Court was correct in allowing the claims of 27 former employees and ordering the company — which operates the Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur Hotel — to pay RM644,884.10 in relation to the service charge which was deducted and used to “top up” the basic salary to meet the minimum wages requirement.
The background to the dispute was that with the coming into effect of the Minimum Wages Order 20124 , the Property had decided to implement the MWO 2012 by restructuring the employees’ wages.
By letter dated 1 October 2013, the Property had informed eight Respondents5 of the implementation of the MWO 2012. Meanwhile, for the remaining 19 Respondents6 , the Appellant had informed them of the addition to their basic salary in accordance with the implementation of the MWO 2012 in the relevant years. All 27 Respondents had accepted the letter and the terms contained therein by virtue of their signature at the acceptance portion of the respective letters.
The Respondents thereafter filed claims at the Labour Court for the deductions made to their service charge. The Director General of Labour handed down a decision dated 23 May 2023 whereby the Property was ordered to pay the Respondents the balance of the service charge allegedly due to them.
The Property appealed against the decisions of the Labour Court and argued that since the Respondents claimed that the Property had underpaid their service charge, the burden of proof was on the Respondents to establish the following key elements:
- they were entitled to three service charge points;
- evidence reflecting the value of each service charge point in respect of each month they claimed for; and
- that the amounts claimed by them were actually deducted from their wages.
