Sydney currency trader fired after employer tracked laptop to Singapore hotel

Mixed · 2Charles Graham, a Sydney-based currency trader at HIFX Australia, which trades as Xe, was fired in December 2025 after his employer found he and his laptop were in Singapore while he said he was working from home. 1 2 Mixed · 2Xe had rejected his September 2025 request to relocate to Singapore for a year. He held a youth mobility visa he needed to use by mid-November 2025, but the company said his job was based in Sydney and it had no licence to operate in Singapore. 1 2 Mixed · 2After the refusal, Graham sent a medical certificate saying an eye injury required him to work from home for three months, then took annual leave and went to Singapore. 1 2

Mixed · 2When he did not come back online on 17 November, his manager emailed an IT employee that she would need their "FBI skills" (as reported from The Straits Times), and the checks traced the laptop to an Ibis hotel in Singapore. 1 2 Mixed · 2Graham said he had meant to return to Australia but postponed his flight because his partner developed a bacterial infection needing treatment. He said the change happened over a weekend, so he did not think to contact his manager, and that by the time he logged on he was swamped with emails, calls and a complaint from a high-value client. 1 2 Mixed · 2Xe's December 2025 termination letter said he had produced neither flight records showing an intention to return nor medical evidence of his partner's illness, and called his conduct "a serious breach of company policy, a failure to follow lawful and reasonable instructions, and an irreparable breakdown of trust and confidence". 1 2

Mixed · 2Graham challenged the dismissal at the Fair Work Commission. He argued his location was found through "illegal tracking surveillance" and that he had worked from Bali several times in April and May 2025 without reprimand; his manager told the commission she did not know he had been working overseas. 1 2 Mixed · 2The company's evidence included a Microsoft Teams message in which Graham asked to work from home to be present for a plumber dealing with recurring bathroom issues, when he was reportedly in Bali. 1 2 Mixed · 2Commissioner Alana Matheson found that hiding his Bali location showed Graham knew he needed permission to work abroad, and that his failure to disclose his location before being caught in Singapore "was deliberate and amounted to dishonesty". 1 2

Mixed · 2The commission nonetheless criticised the process: Xe had not explained its reasons for the dismissal, denying him a fair chance to respond, and internal messages suggested the outcome was already decided. It ruled the process unfair last week but accepted Xe had a valid reason, and Graham was not reinstated or given further compensation, having already received four weeks' pay in lieu of notice. 1 2