Two Fair Work decisions, Pascua v Doessel Group and Sanderson v Brightest, have reset the rules for engaging offshore talent. An overseas contractor can be found to be your employee, and Australian workplace law can follow a contract across borders. Here's what changed, and how the right engagement model keeps that exposure off your business.
What the rulings established
In Pascua v Doessel Group [2024] FWC 2669, the Fair Work Commission found that a Philippines-based worker engaged by an Australian business as an 'independent contractor' was, in substance, an employee, with the protections that brings, including access to an unfair dismissal claim. The contractor label didn't survive contact with the reality of the relationship: set hours, ongoing direction, and integration into the business. The matter was tested and refined through further proceedings in 2025 ([2025] FWC 1833; [2025] FWCFB 43). Then, in Sanderson v Brightest [2026] FWC 1633, the Commission confirmed a second, equally important point: where the contract is formed in Australia, the Fair Work Act can apply, even when the work itself is performed offshore.
Why 'offshore' no longer means 'outside the system'
For years, many businesses treated overseas engagement as a clean way to sit outside Australian employment law. These decisions close that gap. Two things now matter far more than the word 'contractor' on a document: how the relationship actually works day to day, and where the contract was made. Get either wrong and an offshore engagement can pull you into the Fair Work system, exposing you to unfair dismissal claims, employee entitlements, minimum standards, back-pay and sham-contracting risk.
Where the liability lands
The exposure attaches to the business that engages and directs the worker. If you contract directly with an individual overseas and control how they work, you are the party a tribunal will examine, and increasingly the party left holding employee obligations you never budgeted for. The more integrated and directed the person is, the greater the chance a 'contractor' is found to be your employee.
How Extend Resourcing protects you
Our model is built to keep this risk off your books. With Extend Resourcing you don't engage an individual. You engage us for a managed service and an agreed outcome. The professionals on your team are sourced, engaged and managed by Extend Resourcing under our own contracts and HR framework. Your agreement with us is a business-to-business service agreement, not an employment or independent-contractor arrangement with a person. That distinction is exactly what these cases turn on: there is no contract formed between you and the worker, and no direct engagement to reclassify, so the exposure the Commission examined does not attach to you the way it does with direct engagement. We hold the employment relationship, and the compliance that comes with it, at arm's length from your business.
What to check in any outsourcing arrangement
Whoever you work with, ask the same questions. Who actually employs or engages the worker, you, or the provider? Is your agreement a service contract for an outcome, or a thin wrapper over one person's labour? Who directs the day-to-day work? Who carries entitlements, termination and compliance? If the honest answers put you in the employer's seat, the recent decisions say you may be one, whatever the paperwork calls it.
The fine print
This article is general information about developments in Australian workplace law, not legal advice, and it does not account for your specific circumstances. Engagement structures should be reviewed with a qualified Australian employment lawyer before you rely on them. Extend Resourcing works alongside your advisers to structure engagements that stand up to scrutiny.
Offshore no longer means outside Australian law. The businesses that stay protected are the ones that engage a service, not a person.
Put it into practice
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