Qantas (ASX:QAN) didn’t rort JobKeeper, rules court

Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) has won an appeal to reverse an earlier court ruling that it had inappropriately pocketed JobKeeper payments meant for staff.

The full Federal Court on Thursday quashed the original September judgment made by a single judge. 

The reasoning was that adhering to that decision would have posed an excessive level of administrative burden on employers. The judges deemed that would not have been the intent of the government when it started the COVID-19 assistance scheme.

The dispute between the airline and unions was around wages paid in arrears. Qantas had been counting arrears payments towards the JobKeeper payment, whereas unions argued staff should be receiving both the wage owed and the government…