Twelve Cupcakes Pleads Guilty to Underpaying 7 Foreign Workers for 2 Years

If you remember, news of Twelve Cupcakes underpaying foreign workers for over two years first surfaced back in Oct 2020.

They were first charged in court on 1 Oct, back in court on 22 Oct for a special mention and was accused of shortchanging their employees’ salaries from Dec 2016 to Jan 2019.

The victims include Ma Catleene Villacorta Dela Cruz who received less than her $2,600 for 26 months and another four victims who received less than the $2,200-$2,400 salaries they were promised for 24 months.

Not many details are known about the positions they fill and how much they were shortchanged by.

In total, the bakery chain is facing 29 charges.

Well, we’re now nearing the end of the year and there’s been an update (finally) to the case.

Twelve Cupcakes Pleads Guilty to Underpaying 7 Foreign Workers for 2 Years

On 10 Dec 2020, the pastry chain pleaded guilty to 15 charges of underpaying employees in 2017 and 2018.

Court documents showed that all 7 employees who were shortchanged are S-pass holders at the time of the offences.

They were supposed to be paid a monthly salary ranging between S$2,200 and S$2,600. However, they were only paid S$1,400 to S$2,050.

It was further reported that six of the employees are in sales and customer service roles, and were underpaid for their Dec 2016 to Sep 2018 wages.

Two of the six were also underpaid for their Oct and Nov 2018 wages.

The remaining employee, a pastry chef, was underpaid from Jan 2017 to Sep 2018.

Hiding Paper Trail

Apparently, Twelve Cupcakes did more than just underpay their employees.

They tried to hide the paper trail of their offences too.

Initially, they had directly credited the reduced salaries to their employees’ bank accounts but changed tactics from May 2018.

They transferred the employees’ full pay to their bank accounts but mandated that they must return a portion of their salaries to the company.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) prosecutor urges the court to slap the company with a S$127,000 fine and pointed out that if their actions were not discovered, they would’ve continued underpaying their employees.

It was also added that Singapore’s F&B sector depends heavily on foreign manpower and that it must be shown that Singapore holds companies accountable for their welfare.

Meanwhile, Twelve Cupcakes lawyer, Defence lawyer Selvarajan Balamurugan, pointed out that his client has repaid the employees in full even before the proceedings in court has started.

They are expected to be sentenced next year on 7 Jan and 14 other charges will be taken into consideration during the sentencing.

Founded By S’pore Celebrities & Sold To Indian Tea Company

Twelve Cupcakes was founded by radio deejay Daniel Ong and his ex-wife Jaime Teo back in 2011.

Teo was allegedly the one to create the recipes for the cupcakes, tuned towards Asian palate when it first began.

However, when the couple divorced in late 2016, they decided to sell the business.

Twelve Cupcakes was sold to an Indian tea company, Dhunseri Group, for S$2.5 million in Jan 2017.

For Singaporean workers, here’s a helpful article that you might want to check out to know more about your rights as an employee in Singapore.

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