A Sydney currency trader who was sacked for working from Singapore without approval has won an unfair dismissal case, but failed to be awarded compensation.

The Fair Work Commission ruled on Wednesday that Charles Graham had been unfairly dismissed by HIFX Australia, trading as Xe, in December last year.

Graham was sacked after his manager asked an IT worker to use his “FBI skills” and track the IP address on Graham’s laptop.

They discovered he was working from Singapore. It was also later discovered he had previously worked from Bali after telling his manager he was working from home because he had a plumber “coming around to sort out some recurring bathroom issues”.

Graham was sacked as Xe found he knew he had to get prior approval to work overseas and was to attend the office three times a week.

He said he had been holidaying in Singapore before his partner became ill with a bacterial infection, preventing him from returning to Australia.

He provided documentation, which he said showed his partner required medical treatment.

Graham had previously asked Xe if he could relocate to Singapore, but his request was denied.

Fair Work Commission commissioner Alana Matheson said that after the company sent an email to Graham advising him of its discovery on 17 November last year, the “tone … had clearly pivoted” by the following day, when he was told “there was a case to answer regarding alleged breaches of company policy”.

Over the following 10 days, a series of further email exchanges and a discussion between Xe managers took place.

Graham said in his written response to Xe that he travelled to Singapore for a holiday and that there was no relation to his previous request to relocate there, that the decision to reschedule the return flight to Australia was made over a weekend, and that as there was no expectation or precedent that he contacted his manager outside business hours, he could not inform them of this.

He said that when he did log on from Singapore rather than in Australia “he was bombarded with triaging hundreds of unread emails from his time off, fielding inbound calls and dealing with an eligible complaint from a high-value client”, and this took priority over telling his manager he was stuck overseas.

Among his other responses was that he only intended to spend a short amount of time overseas, he had not been told about specific policies regarding hybrid work, and that he had intended to let his manager know he was overseas as soon as practicable.

The company was not swayed and on 2 December last year sent him a termination letter that stated it had carefully reviewed his written submissions and found that he had not provided flight screenshots with his name, medical evidence that showed his partner was unable to travel, an adequate explanation for not telling his manager he was in Singapore, and had previously complied with “absence and approval processes”, demonstrating that he was familiar with them and had instead made “a conscious choice not to follow” them.

“Your conduct represents a serious breach of company policy, a failure to follow lawful and reasonable instructions, and an irreparable breakdown of trust and confidence,” it said in the letter.

Graham told the commission he worked remotely twice before November 2025: the previous year from Townsville and in April and May 2025 from Bali. He had been employed by Xe for 20 months.

But his manager said she had not been aware he had ever worked remotely from overseas.

A Microsoft Teams message from Graham to his manager was included in evidence before the commission that detailed his claim he was working from home as he had a plumbing issue during one of the days he also told the commission he worked from Bali.

Matheson found that she was satisfied that the dismissal of Graham was unreasonable because while there was a valid reason for his dismissal, the process followed was procedurally unfair.

This was because Xe failed to fully raise the matters it was relying on in making the decision to dismiss Graham, Matheson said.

She found that reinstatement was inappropriate but also decided against awarding compensation.

This was, she said, in part because his misconduct contributed to the decision to dismiss him, and he was paid four weeks in lieu of notice.