COMPLYING WITH YOUR SPONSOR OBLIGATIONS

When an employer is approved as a sponsor, they must meet certain sponsor obligations. Some obligations extend past the term of the sponsorship approval.

The general rule is: comply with the rules…and if you have breached them, then seek advice ASAP on how to minimise the impact. The immigration department is always going to be more understanding about a breach if you approach them, before they approach you. Obviously you should get legal advice first to ensure you handle it properly.

Each month we will be focussing on a different obligation, to make sponsors aware of what their sponsor obligations are, and how to comply with their obligations.

Sponsors must notify the Department of Immigration within 10 working days that a Subclass 457 Visa holder has ceased working for the sponsor company, in complying with the sponsor obligations.

In notifying the Department of this, the sponsor will need to provide the following information pertaining to the visa holder:

Full name;
Date of birth;
Passport number;
Exact date of cessation of employment; and
Email address or forwarding address.

These details must be sent to the Sponsor Monitoring team in the state of the businesses head office.

If a sponsor breaches their obligations, the sponsor may be barred from sponsoring more people for a certain amount of time, may be barred from applying for approval, or may have all of the existing approvals cancelled. They will likely have to enter into an enforceable undertaking, promising that they will undertake to complete certain actions to demonstrate that the failures have been rectified and won’t happen again.

Furthermore, sponsors found to have breached their obligations may be issued with an infringement notice of up to AUD10200 for a body corporate and AUD2040 for an individual for each failure, or be taken to court and required to pay a civil penalty of up to AUD51000 for a corporation and AUD10200 for an individual for each failure.

If you have any questions about complying with your obligations, please do not hesitate to contact our registered migration lawyers. Our team are also experienced in the area of employment law, and can assist you in dealing with any related ramifications in these circumstances.