Hong Kong’s Physical gym founders fined HK$24,000 for unpaid wages to 2 coaches
Chain’s directors have exhausted their payment options after mortgaging all their properties, lawyer says
Eastern Court on Friday recorded guilty pleas from a lawyer representing Luk Ngai-keung and his wife, Ho Yuk-wah, on eight wage default charges under the Employment Ordinance.
The couple, who were absent from the hearing, were also required to pay damages totalling HK$23,227, which represented the outstanding payments to the two former workers between August 1 and September 6 last year.
Physical Health Centre Hong Kong, the company that hired the two coaches, was previously fined HK$44,000 after pleading guilty to 12 charges in April this year.
The 38-year-old gym chain had defaulted on payments to more than 700 workers when it abruptly closed all of its 14 branches across Hong Kong in September 2024, a Labour Department representative told the court on Friday.
Defence counsel Bosco Cheng Yu-kit said his clients, who were both directors of Physical, had been “extremely responsible” in running the company and had never delayed payments to staff before last year.