Malaysian Employee Fails To Overturn Dismissal Decision Over Getting Caught Playing PS4

A piece of interesting news just came in which is surrounding a case in Malaysia involving a local Malaysian ex-employee of a household appliance company, Coway (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd who got terminated after getting caught playing the PS4 while on the job. According to an article by Wanuxi, the ex-employee failed in his legal bid to oppose the termination over the act.

Mohd Zulbahrin Zainuddin, Industrial Court chairman stated that Coway had acted within its rights when it terminated the employee’s contract due to breaching company policies.

The man who started off his career with the company all the way back in 2015 as a junior technical trainer was caught by his department manager, playing the Sony PS4 home console. On top of that, he committed the act with his subordinates during working hours between the dates of 23rd Aug 2022 to 26th Aug 2022. The aforementioned department manager filed in complaints which have led the company conducting a domestic inquiry and not long after, the employee was terminated by Nov 2022.

Zulbahrin shared that the claimant (ex-employee) had admitted in an internal investigation that the act of playing the PS4 or “video games” in general while on the job was prohibited by the company. “Firstly, playing video games itself is an offence, and secondly, there was no permission from the company to do so,” Zulbahrin said in his written judgment dated Oct 2. He also added that the claimant was not successful in providing evidences that would have indicate any form of “mala fide” and bad faith from the start of the investigation.

Therefore, he concluded that “The company has successfully proven, on the balance of probabilities, that the termination of the claimant’s employment was carried out with just cause and reason,”.

Join Us!