Melb school pays up over dodgy contracts

A Melbourne independent school has paid $440,000 in penalties and legal costs for hiring teachers on illegal, fixed-term contracts and obstructing an investigation.

The Independent Education Union and the Australian International Academy of Education, formerly King Khalid College, faced off in a Federal Court trial in September and October 2015.

The court ruled the school breached the Fair Work Act by hiring too many teachers on fixed-term contracts at the start of 2012, altered contracts when the union wanted to inspect them and refused the IEU access to electronic copies of the contracts.

An order to pay more than $150,000 plus legal costs was made in June and school director general and member of the Order of Australia, Salah Salman, was also ordered to pay the penalty to the union.

The school and Mr Salman dropped an appeal against the ruling on Tuesday.

The Academy has paid the $150,000 penalty and $290,000 in legal costs to the IEU.