Former Star casino boss hit with six-year ban, $700k fine

Former Star casino boss Matt Bekier has been fined $700,000 and banned from managing a corporation for six years after being found to have breached the Corporations Act, but Federal Court Justice Michael Lee made clear that he would have preferred a harsher punishment.

In handing down the fine and the ban, Lee slammed the securities watchdog for lenient penalties given to two other senior executives, which forced him to be “materially less severe than what would otherwise be the case” with Bekier, and former legal chief Paula Martin.

Justice Lee on Wednesday announced penalties for Bekier, who was previously found to have breached his director duties at Star in relation to their handling of risks associated with money laundering - and Martin for her breaches.

Lee banned Martin from managing a corporation for seven years and fined her $400,000, while also ordering that the duo jointly fund 45 per cent of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) legal costs in bringing the action.

“Save for ASIC’s leniency in reaching an objectively generous deal with (Greg) Hawkins and (Harry) Theodore, who engaged in comparable misconduct, the penalties I would have imposed on Mr Bekier and Miss Martin would have been different,” Justice Lee said in his judgment.

ASIC had been seeking an eight-year ban for Bekier, and a penalty of $1.3 million. For Martin, ASIC requested a $1.1 million fine and seven-year ban.

Lee settled on a harsher ban for Martin due to the seriousness of the misconduct and the “very serious departure” from her role as the most senior legal officer in the group, in failing to report “a miscellany of alarming information” to the board.

Lee indicated that one of the factors he weighed up was the lack of insight displayed by Bekier and Martin in relation to their wrongdoing.

“It is one thing to regret the consequences of having been investigated and sued; it is another to demonstrate an appreciation of why the conduct found by the Court involved serious failures in the discharge of duties owed by senior officers of a casino operator,” Lee said.

The judgment also offered a withering assessment of the board, despite Justice Lee exonerating them of any wrongdoing in his earlier judgment.

In March, Lee dismissed allegations by ASIC that Star’s board breached their duties by paying insufficient attention to the risks of money laundering and criminal association at Star’s casinos that have ultimately led the company to the verge of collapse.

“As I observed in the judgment, what was striking was not merely the foreseeability of risks at different points of time, but the failure of all directors, save in one limited respect, to pursue lines of inquiry with the rigor one might expect of those prepared to accept office as a director for a corporation conducting a business pregnant with inherent and obvious risks,” Lee said in his judgment on Wednesday.

“It’s therefore important not to misunderstand the effect of the dismissal of ASIC’s claim against non-executive directors.”

Lee said their exoneration “did not involve any endorsement of the quality of the board’s governance culture or practices during the relevant period”.

The sentencing brings to a close ASIC’s case against the casino operator, its senior executives and board of directors which commenced in December 2022.

In March, Justice Lee found that Bekier had breached his duties as a director of the embattled casino operator; three of his senior executives were also found to have made breaches. But Justice Lee cleared the board for failing to pierce the “dysfunctional and unethical” culture at the company.

Lee found Bekier had breached his director’s duties in relation to a damning KPMG report detailing how Star was falling short of its anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing obligations, as well as Bekier’s response to the information about notorious high-roller tour operator Suncity and Salon 95 – its VIP room at Star catering directly to its high-rollers.

The judgment also found that Martin “failed to exercise her powers or discharge her duties as an officer of Star” over her failure to inform the board of alarming information on how cash was being brought in via suitcases and paper bags to Suncity’s VIP room Salon 95, and its staff were attempting to obscure surveillance cameras.

Star’s former chief casino officer, Greg Hawkins, and chief financial officer Harry Theodore, had settled with ASIC before the case began, accepting fines and corporate bans from the regulator.

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