A Canberra company director transferred real estate into his wife's name the same day a court found his cleaning business had underpaid staff.
Justice Jayne Jagot said it could be inferred that Angelo Di Dio and Phillips Cleaning Service had deliberately attempted to "place their assets beyond the reach" of the workers they owed up to $300,000 in unpaid wages.
The court heard the workers had not yet received their money.
In a judgment, published on Friday, the Federal Court judge fined the cleaning company $110,000 and Mr Di Dio $20,000 for breaches of the Fair Work Act.
The case brings to a close the two year old legal action, which started when the United Voice union filed a case on behalf of 22 workers in 2015, alleging some staff were owed almost $25,000 in entitlements.
The majority of the workers were S'gaw Karen refugees from Thailand and Burma, who spoke little English and spent two decades in refugee camps in Thailand before resettlement in Australia.
The company, which was contracted to clean 10 public schools in the ACT, has repeatedly denied the allegations.
In April, Justice Jagot found the company breached the Fair Work Act by not paying the permanent part-time school cleaners properly for school holiday work, didn't provide an off-site induction, and didn't pay some employees annual leave loading.
The court also found staff were pressured into signing contracts they did not understand, paid from different business entities, and exposed to unsafe working conditions.
On Friday, Justice Jagot handed down her decision on penalties against the company and Mr Di Dio.
Justice Jagot said, since her April judgment, that Mr Di Dio had "carried out or failed to carry out certain acts" which persuaded her that he refused to accept responsibility for the "contraventions or any obligation to rectify them".
"As such, it is not merely that the respondents cannot be found to be contrite; the respondents may be inferred to have deliberately taken steps to place their assets beyond the reach of the applicants who have been systematically underpaid as a result of Mr Di Dio's view … that he 'felt entitled to run PCS as he thought fit irrespective of any legal obligations of PCS to its employees'," the judgment said.
"Given their conduct it may come as no surprise that the respondents have not paid the moneys found to be owed to the applicants."
The judgment revealed evidence that, in 2016, immediately before filing a defence, charges over all Phillips Cleaning Service property were registered in favour of Sydney-businesses Accolade Advisory and Reliance Financial Services.
In April, on the day of the judge's original decision, Mr Di Dio transferred real estate owned by him to his wife.
The transfer instrument was witnessed by accountant Sam Cassaniti, who is linked to Accolade Advisory and Reliance Financial Services.
Mr Di Dio then changed the name of the company, from Phillips Cleaning Service to Lloyd's Cleaning ACT, 10 days after the Federal Court decision.
In mid-July, a caveat over real estate owned by both Mr Di Dio and his wife was registered in favour of Accolade Advisory.
"The evidence also establishes that Accolade Advisory and Reliance Financial Services are two of the Cassaniti organisations who are alleged to have been owed substantial debts by the corporations which Mr Di Dio established in a failed attempt to maintain that PCS did not employ the employees," the decision said.
The judge ordered the $130,000 in penalties against the cleaning company and Mr Di Dio be paid to United Voice.
United Voice ACT Branch secretary Lyndal Ryan said Mr Di Dio must accept the court's decision and pay what is owed to the workers.
"Mr Di Dio has 28 days to appeal this decision and perhaps that's what he will do rather than take responsibility for a situation that was entirely of his own making," Ms Ryan said.
"He once told workers at the commencement of these proceedings that he would rather pay legal fees than see the workers receive one cent of what they are owed. That is perhaps why these proceedings have been so protracted with all attempts to settle the matter rejected by him."
Ms Ryan said United Voice would engage a debt collection agency to "recover what is rightfully owed to workers" if no appeal was lodged and the money had not been paid after 28 days.
"Wage theft is not acceptable," she said.
A spokesman for Mr Di Dio was contacted for comment.