Astro cameraman awarded over RM474,000 for unfair dismissal

An Astro cameraman dismissed for allegedly streaming Astro Ceria content illegally via his personal account has been awarded RM474,240 by the Kuala Lumpur Industrial Court which ruled his sacking was unjust.

Industrial Court chairman Augustine Anthony said the domestic inquiry (DI) panel, which found Chen Ken Tatt guilty, had improperly shifted the burden of proof onto the employee to show he was not the person who streamed AstroGo content into the illegal app HotTV.

He said that having made the accusation, Astro Facilities Sdn Bhd bore the responsibility to prove it. The award was handed down on Oct 27.

Anthony said the panel had relied heavily on the testimony of the company’s witness, its former head of intellectual property protection unit Brendan Lopez Michael, and placed the claimant in an “unenviable and helpless state” by shifting the burden of proof onto him to show he was not the culprit.

He also noted that the witness contradicted himself by speculating on various ways the illegal streaming could have occurred — including a suggestion that Chen’s wife or son might have done it if Chen had shared his mobile one-time password (OTP) with them.

“Unfortunately for the company, this sequence of evidence, which dabbled into the realm of conjecture, not only unfairly accused the claimant and his family but was devoid of any cogent evidence to prove the trail of actions or activities by the claimant, his wife or son.

“In order to prove that it was the claimant who had intentionally committed the illegal act of streaming the programme or content or negligently caused the same, more is needed than merely showing that the claimant’s AstroGo account was used for that purpose,” he said.

Anthony also said the company’s evidence of dark web searches showing Chen’s login details had not been leaked — used to infer no third party was involved — was inconclusive proof of guilt.

He added that the company’s witnesses could not explain how the dark web searches were conducted.

“Apart from the above shoddy conclusion and unsupported inferences drawn by the company, it also did not go any further to check or conduct forensic investigation on all the claimant’s or his family’s devices to establish any link between the illegal streaming and the claimant.

“There is no evidence before this court that the claimant was unwilling to cooperate with the company in this regard,” he added.

Chen’s employment was terminated on July 24, 2023, after 26 years of continuous service and without any disciplinary record.

The court awarded him back wages based on his last-drawn salary of RM9,880 per month for 22 months, plus compensation in lieu of reinstatement calculated at one month’s wage for each year of service, totalling RM474,240.

V Varunnath and Tan Jing Yi appeared for the claimant while Adrienne Sena was counsel for Astro.

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