Hong Kong’s Physical gym founders fined HK$24,000 for unpaid wages to 2 coaches

ByWorld News

Jun 20, 2025

The founders of the now-closed Physical fitness chain have been fined HK$12,000 (US$1,530) each over unpaid salaries to two coaches, with their lawyer saying they had exhausted every payment option after mortgaging all their properties.

Eastern Court on Friday recorded guilty pleas from a lawyer representing Luk Ngai-keung and his wife Ho Yuk-wah on eight wage default charges under the Employment Ordinance.

The couple, who were absent from the hearing, were also required to pay damages totalling HK$23,227.80, which represented the outstanding payments to the two former workers between August 1 and September 6, 2024.

Physical Health Centre Hong Kong Limited, the company that hired the two coaches, was previously fined a total of HK$44,000 after pleading guilty to 12 charges in April.

The 38-year-old gym chain had defaulted on payments to more than 700 workers when it abruptly closed all of its 14 branches across Hong Kong in September the same year, a Labour Department representative told the court on Friday.

Defence counsel Bosco Cheng Yu-kit said his clients, who were both directors of Physical, had been “extremely responsible” in running the company and had never delayed payments to staff before last year.

Cheng highlighted mitigation letters signed by more than 100 former employees, who said the couple had endeavoured to support the company’s operation during difficult times – from the 2019 anti-government protests to the Covid-19 pandemic that followed.