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Gulf: Stakeholders incl. migrant workers and contractors protest as Australian giant CIMIC fails to pay dues amounting to more than USD360m; incl. co. comment
CIMIC Australia, the country's largest construction company, has come under fire for allegedly failing to pay workers, contractors and subcontractors and even defaulting on bank payments for outstanding loans.
Migrant workers included Australian nationals and others who were struggling to make ends meet and were trapped in countries they were working in due to insufficiency of funds to make the trip back to their countries as CIMIC's outstanding payments topped $500m (USD360m).
Critics have said the Australian company is able to get away with this since it is in a country where penalties against such actions are more lenient.
“If this was happening in Australia, it would be considered absolutely scandalous...And I think the real scandal is thinking they could get away with it, because it’s in a foreign country, out of sight and out of mind.”Helen Bird, a lecturer at Swinburne Law School and a member of the ASIC corporate governance panel