Toorak loan broker and a sister company sacked workers who asked to be paid, a court has found. It is the third time the same manager has been penalised over how he treats his staff.
A Melbourne finance operator who is already banned from the credit industry for life has been hit with another round of penalties. This time it’s for exploiting migrant workers and firing two employees who asked when they would be paid.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court has ordered Ansa Finance Pty Ltd, a Toorak-based broker of short-term personal loans, to pay $233,100. Joshua Fuoco, who managed the business, was personally penalised $72,620. AFSL Group Pty Ltd, a second Toorak company he managed, was ordered to pay $173,160. In total the Fair Work Ombudsman has secured $478,880.
The court had already ordered the two companies to repay the $30,817 they owed four workers, plus interest and superannuation.
Sacked for chasing their pay
Three of the four workers were visa holders from India and Nepal. The fourth was a 20-year-old Australian university student, who was owed the most of anyone: $14,336. All four worked in insurance, broking or customer relationship roles at various times during 2021 and 2022.
On paper the jobs looked generous, with written contracts promising more than the award. In practice the companies often didn’t pay staff for some or all of the hours they worked. That left them short on minimum hourly rates, public holiday pay, annual and personal leave, and notice, in breach of the Banking, Finance and Insurance Award 2020 and the National Employment Standards.
The worst case was AFSL Group’s only affected employee, a visa holder who received nothing for four months of work despite being owed $6,884. When she and one other worker pressed for their outstanding money, they were let go. The court found both dismissals were unlawful adverse action.
The AFSL Group worker told the court she spent six months unemployed after she was dismissed. During that time she relied on money sent by her parents in India and on loans from friends and relatives. The experience was so upsetting that she has since left the finance industry entirely.
The companies also broke the rules on how often staff must be paid and on issuing payslips. They ignored Notices to Produce records from a Fair Work inspector. The court found Fuoco was an accessory to most of the breaches.
A ‘cavalier disregard’
Judge Janine Young found the breaches amounted to deliberate exploitation of vulnerable workers. She saved her sharpest criticism for Fuoco and Ansa Finance, describing repeated non-compliance and a “cavalier disregard for the integrity of the Fair Work regulatory system”.
The judge accepted the regulator’s argument that, given Fuoco’s history and his continuing roles across several companies, there was a real chance he would employ people again. She said the penalties needed to deter him personally as well as other employers.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth called the conduct extremely serious. “There is no place in Australian workplaces for exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers,” she said. Booth described the sackings as appalling. She stressed that visa holders have the same workplace rights as everyone else, and that protections exist for their visas if they come forward.
A long rap sheet
This is not Fuoco’s first time in court. In 2024 the Ombudsman secured $99,900 in penalties against Ansa Finance and Fuoco across two cases. Those cases were about ignoring compliance notices that required the company to back-pay five workers. The regulator launched the latest proceedings in December 2025. It was the first time it had targeted AFSL Group.
His record with the corporate regulator goes back further. In 2018 the Federal Court barred him from the financial services industry for 10 years. That ruling followed findings that his businesses had engaged in unconscionable conduct, and he was ordered to pay $650,000 personally. In September 2023 ASIC permanently banned him from credit activities.
In July 2025 he was convicted of 18 counts of contempt of court. The court found that between March 2019 and April 2023 he had kept running financial businesses through five companies, including Ansa Finance and AFSL Group. In his judgment, Justice Horan called it the “most serious incident of contempt of court in recent years”. Fuoco was sentenced to 12 months’ jail, wholly suspended for two years, and gave an undertaking never to work in financial services or credit again.
