Philip Goodman, chairman and sole director of Rivers Australia, is again on the hot seat after a former employee has lodged a sexual harassment claim, his second in a span of two years.

Mr Goodman will slug it out in court on Aug 2 the sexual harassment case filed by Rachael Adamopoulos, who alleged the Rivers Australia chief harassed her regularly. According to a report by Fairfax, Ms Adamopoulos said Mr Goodman touched her buttocks on several occasions and made suggestive comments about her breasts.

Ms Adamopoulos worked at Rivers for 14 years before resigning in 2007. She claimed the first of the sexual harassment incidents occurred when Mr Goodman wanted her to wear a black cat-suit and appear as ''Pussy Galore'' in an advertising campaign in 1999.

But Ms Adamopoulos refused to wear the cat-suit. After the rejection, it was then that Mr Goodman repeatedly kept referring to her as ''Pussy.''

However, the strategy in asking employees to become the company's advertising models has been a practice at Rivers Australia for sometime, according to Peter Abbott, its former marketing director.

Mr Abbott said the company reaches out to employees to models their products all because of budget constraints.

"It is amazing how things that come out of necessity get adopted. We couldn't afford models at Rivers. So I roped anyone in, including staff, my brother-in-law, even my children," he earlier told Smart Company.

"When we did the first catalogue we got heaps of letters and phone calls from people in advertising telling us how unprofessional we were. But we got 10 times more from customers telling us they were fantastic and how great it was to see real people modelling."

But apparently, it was more than just a request for company modeling what Mr Goodman allegedly wants from Ms Adamopoulos.

Ms Adamopoulos claimed that on several occasions between 2002 and 2007, the Rivers Australia chief said he loved her and wished he had married her. Mr Goodman allegedly also called her as ''Madam Lash,'' ''the Boss,'' ''the Queen'' or ''his girl.''

Ms Adamopoulos wants Mr Goodman and Rivers Australia to pay for damages in relation to the depression and post-traumatic stress she experienced because of the sexual harassment case.

Mr Goodman is also facing another sexual harassment case filed by former employee Sallyanne Robinson in 2011. Ms Robinson, employed at Rivers Australia from September 2009 to July 2010, alleged she was sexually harassed by Mr Goodman when she was forced to model underwear in his office. She alleged further he instructed her to secretly photograph the goods sold by competitors.