• Darrell Lea's new owners have agreed pay up after a year-long dispute with six former employees.
    Darrell Lea's new owners have agreed pay up after a year-long dispute with six former employees.
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Darrell Lea's new owners have agreed to pay out six former employees who could not to travel to work at the company’s new facility after a year-long dispute.

The company's new owners, the Quinn family, have agreed to pay more than $400,000 in entitlements to the employees.

The Quinn family, who also own VIP Petfoods, bought the Darrell Lea brand and its manufacturing operations in 2012.

As part of a restructure, they relocated the operations from the original facility at Kogarah in Sydney's south to to a new site at Ingleburn in Sydney's south-west.

While most of the workforce was able to move, some could not for personal, family reasons.

In January, the Fair Work Commission ordered the employment company connected to Darrell Lea, DL Employment, to pay out six workers after it found that their personal circumstances had rendered them unable to work at the new factory.

DL Employment, however, was then placed in voluntary administration.

The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union responded by organising a protest outside the company that liquidated DL Employment, to coincide with a creditors meeting, and today it announced that late last night, Darrell Lea had agreed to pay all outstanding money owed to its six former employees.

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