Ipoh labour forum grants limited relief over employer’s unverified sales-based wage exemption

The Labour administrative hearing forum in Ipoh granted Nur Farhana Ismail limited relief against Lintas Pantry Supplies Sdn. Bhd., ruling that its claimed below-RM50-million exemption was not verified by the hearing record. It did not decide whether the exemption ultimately applied, find that sales exceeded the threshold or award wages.

The dispute concerned what the employer could tell warehouse staff about an announced June 2027 RM2,000 minimum while its sales figures remained unexplained. Farhana sought to keep the exemption unverified pending a complete sales explanation and marketplace reconciliation, rather than obtain an immediate wage award.

The judgment granted only the finding that the claim was unverified. It did not order the company to complete a future reconciliation, and no payment was ordered between the parties.

The decisive gap was documentary. Although the company repeatedly cited annual sales of RM49.6 million, it produced no underlying sales summary, ledger or reconciliation explaining how marketplace orders had been treated. Repeating a figure in submissions did not turn it into a reliable sales record.

The parties also discussed RM800,000 in unreconciled marketplace orders. But no underlying reconciliation was presented, and Farhana accepted that some orders might be duplicates. That uncertainty could not establish that orders had been omitted or that sales crossed RM50 million.

The distinction mattered: the evidence supported neither acceptance of the exemption as verified nor rejection of it as false. The forum applied the requirements for proof, reliable records and record-supported administrative decisions to reach that narrower result.

The WhatsApp notice did establish what staff were told. It presented the exemption as settled and contained no qualification about final implementation rules. The forum rejected the employer’s provisional-guidance interpretation of that wording, but did not find that the notice itself changed any legal entitlement.

Farhana argued that the confident staff notice could not be reconciled with an unexplained sales figure close to the threshold and an unfinished marketplace reconciliation. She acknowledged having no further independent sales records and expressly declined to allege that the disputed orders were omitted.

Lintas Pantry relied on its asserted RM49.6 million summary and warned against counting marketplace orders twice. It described the notice as planning guidance and sought rejection of the request to treat its exemption claim as unverified.

The forum accepted possible duplication as a reason not to infer higher sales. It did not accept that possibility as a substitute for explaining the asserted total.

The notice circulated to Ipoh warehouse staff on 10 October 2026 linked the company’s claimed sales below RM50 million to its statement that the announced minimum would not apply. Repeated presentations of that same notice were not independent corroborating messages.

The outcome leaves eligibility unresolved. Any later determination would require records supporting the relevant sales figure and explaining the treatment of the reconciliation. This judgment establishes only that the evidence presented at this hearing was insufficient to verify the employer’s claim.