Enforcement

Employers

Enforcement measures

MPFA detects non-compliance by investigating complaints and proactively inspecting employers’ premises, and will take enforcement measures against non-compliant employers (including those who are found to have evaded payment of MPF contributions, deducted employer’s contributions from an employee's pay, or failed to enrol their employees in an MPF scheme). Such measures may include:

Requesting employers to rectify the situation immediately
Imposing a contribution surcharge of 5% on defaulting employers
Filing a civil claim in court to recover mandatory contributions and surcharges in arrears
Imposing financial penalties on non-compliant employers
Prosecuting non-compliant employers or persons, including their officers, directors and partners

Penalties

MPFA may initiate criminal prosecution against non-compliant employers. The following are the relevant penalties:

Type of Employer Non-compliance	Penalty
Failure to enrol employees in an MPF scheme	Maximum penalty of a $350,000 fine and imprisonment for three years
Failure to pay mandatory contributions via the eMPF Platform (having deducted 5% from employees’ relevant income)	Maximum penalty of a $450,000 fine and imprisonment for four years
Failure to pay mandatory contributions via the eMPF Platform (without deducting 5% from employees’ relevant income)	Maximum penalty of a $350,000 fine and imprisonment for three years
Providing false or misleading information to trustees, the eMPF Platform or MPFA	Maximum penalty of a $100,000 fine and imprisonment for one year on first conviction; maximum penalty of a $200,000 fine and imprisonment for two years on each subsequent conviction

MPFA may impose a financial penalty on non-compliant employers:

Type of Employer Non-compliance	Penalty
Failure to pay mandatory contributions via the eMPF Platform on time	Financial penalty of $5,000 or 10% of the amount due, whichever is greater
Failure to provide monthly pay-records to employees (except for casual employees participating in Industry Schemes)	Financial penalty of $10,000 for the first failure, $20,000 for the second failure and $50,000 for subsequent failures
Failure to notify the eMPF Platform in writing of an employee’s cessation of employment (except for casual employees participating in Industry Schemes)	Financial penalty of $5,000 for the first failure, $10,000 for the second failure and $20,000 for the subsequent failures
Failure to notify the eMPF Platform in writing of updates on employer information such as company name, address, telephone number and Email address	Financial penalty of $5,000 for the first failure, $10,000 for the second failure and $20,000 for subsequent failures

The eMPF Platform is required to report to MPFA any default contributions by employers. Based on the report, MPFA will issue payment notices to defaulting employers:

Type of Employer Non-compliance	Penalty
Failure to pay mandatory contributions via the eMPF Platform on time	Issue payment notice to employers to recover the default contributions and impose a surcharge calculated at 5% of the default amount. (Note: The surcharge in full will go to the affected employees' MPF accounts.)

What to do after receiving a payment notice

The payment notices issued by MPFA to employers are based on the reports provided by the eMPF Platform. The most common reasons for the eMPF Platform to report default contributions to MPFA are:

no contribution or insufficient contribution
late payment, i.e. the payment is received after the contribution day, even though the amount of contribution is correct
incomplete or inaccurate information in the remittance statement, making the eMPF Platform unable to verify whether the amount of contribution the employer has paid is correct
failure to report the termination of an employee’s employment to the eMPF Platform

Employers who fail to make contributions on time should contact the eMPF Platform to settle the default contributions and surcharges as soon as possible. It is not necessary to wait for the payment notices from MPFA.

As MPFA does not possess any information about the contributions made by the employers via the eMPF Platform, employers should contact the eMPF Platform directly to confirm the surcharge amount and the administrative procedures for payment. They must settle both the outstanding contributions and the surcharges right away. Employers must also submit a separate remittance statement, setting out the names of the affected employees, the default amounts and the surcharge for each of the affected employees.

The surcharge is an amount equal to 5% of the outstanding contributions. Upon receipt of the default contributions and surcharges, the eMPF Platform will allocate the money to the account of each of the affected employees based on the information shown in the remittance statements provided by employers.

If an employer fails to rectify the default contributions, MPFA may impose a financial penalty on the employer or initiate legal proceedings to recover the outstanding contributions and surcharges on behalf of the affected employee.

If the employer has paid contributions via the eMPF Platform in full for each employee on time with complete and accurate remittance statements submitted, and/or that there is no contribution required to be paid for the employee(s) concerned, the employer should follow the instructions contained on the eMPF Platform's "Surcharge Objection Form" to provide all the necessary information and supporting documents to the eMPF Platform within 14 days from the date of the Payment Notice.