SINGAPORE - Marketing and communications company Lyon & Dianzi was fined $8,000 on Thursday for failing to pay compensation to an employee who was injured while working.

This is the first time an employer has been prosecuted for such an offence involving a non-manual employee, said the Manpower Ministry (MOM) in a statement on Friday .

The injured worker -a senior art director at the company - fell down a flight of stairs in December 2012, and the employer was ordered to pay $18,262.64 for medical leave wages and medical expenses. In June 2014 the employer was issued another order to pay $21,800 because the worker suffered permanent incapacity; but it failed to pay both amounts.

MOM prosecuted Lyon & Dianzi under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA), which states that employers are liable to pay compensation if there is a valid claim filed by non-manual workers who are injured during their work.

It is not mandatory for employers to buy insurance to cover their liability under WICA for non-manual workers earning more than $1,600 a month.

MOM's work injury compensation department director Kee Ee Wah said in a statement: "To protect themselves against compensation claims, employers are encouraged to purchase work injury compensation insurance for all employees and ensure that the insurance policy is adequate to cover eligible claims under WICA."