The Court of Appeal held that where a labour hire company (Moon Recruitment) engaged a second labour hire company (Execom) to provide payroll services and Execom sent the worker an employment contract on its own letterhead, the objective circumstances — including the covering email describing the engagement as being 'for Moon Recruitment', a clause in the contract imposing obligations on Moon Recruitment despite it not being a named party, and the worker's prior dealings exclusively with Moon Recruitment — established that Execom contracted as agent for Moon Recruitment as undisclosed principal. Moon Recruitment was therefore the employer liable for workers' compensation under s 18(1) of the Workers' Compensation and Injury Management Act 1981 (WA). The Court confirmed that the identity of contracting parties is determined by what a reasonable person in the position of all potentially relevant parties would understand, applying the Agrigrain v Rindfleish approach, and that the 2015 Agreement between the two companies (unknown to the worker) remained relevant because a person can act as agent without disclosing that fact.
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