Court rules former Star Casino CEO Matt Bekier broke law, but ASIC loses case against other directors
Star Casino’s former CEO was found to have broken the law, although Justice Lee at times also ruled in his defence and that of other directors.
Justice Michael Lee ruled former Star Casino chief executive Matt Bekier breached some of his legal duties, but threw out multiple ASIC claims case against seven of the casino’s non-executive directors in the Federal Court on Thursday.
The case pitted Australia’s powerful financial services regulator against 11 of the casino group’s senior staff and board members, amid allegations the Star was ignoring allegations wealthy Asian gamblers were taking “junket” trips to holiday and launder money at its flagship casino complex in Sydney’s Pyrmont.
In December 2022, after media reporting of the allegations, ASIC brought proceedings against Star for allegedly failing to deal with risks around alleged money laundering and criminal activity.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.However on Thursday, the judge delivered a halfway house verdict in a mammoth 501-page ruling that partly favoured the regulator and partly the defence of Star’s executives.
“ASIC has not established that it’s entitled to any relief against (defendants) Mr O’Neil, Mr Sheppard, Ms Lahey, Mr Bradley, Ms Pitkin, Mr Heap or Mr Todorcevski,” Justice Lee said.
The judge said he based some of his ruling on the idea that the conduct of company directors in assessing risk must be assessed on the context of their decisions at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight.
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards,” he said.
“The human choice is to live by making choices and moving forward, sometimes without complete understanding, but one ultimately gains insights into those choices by looking back.
“Evaluative judgments of past actions, including when assessing legal liability, ought to reflect the reality that actions or inactions, including when assessing legal liability, ought to reflect the reality that actions or inactions of directors, like any human actor, need to be judged by reference to the snapshot of knowledge and perspective then available.”
Ruling against former CEO Matt Bekier
However, Justice Lee also ruled ASIC proved that Mr Bekier and Star’s former chief legal officer Paula Martin breached the Corporations Act and failed in their executives duties in respect to some of the allegations, but not all.
He also said Mr Bekier’s evidence to the court was initially impressive, before becoming at times “unconvincing, contradictory and on occasion highly improbable”.
The rulings against Mr Bekier largely centred around his failure to share information with the casino’s board, while legal arguments debated what information a responsible director or responsible person should share as a steward responsible for managing different risks in a public company.
“I am satisfied that a reasonable director in Mr Bekier’s position with the information I found he had would have recognised that the other people on the Star board relied on him to bring to their attention any matters relating to this and that he engaged in contravening conduct,” said Justice Lee.
He added that a reasonable executive in the position of Mr Bekier would have ensured the board was made aware of information in reports provided to him by consultancy KPMG around the probity of certain Chinese gamblers.
He also also found a reasonable director would have shared other information with Star’s board about the activities of a Sun City gambling group in the casino’s VIP area known as Salon 95.
In a statement ASIC said it will ask the court to impose a financial penalty on Mr Bekier and Ms Martin and to disqualify them from managing corporations for a period of time.
“ASIC pursued this case because of the fundamental questions it raised about trust, governance and accountability at one of Australia’s largest casino operators,” said the regulator’s chairman Joe Longo.
“The Court found that senior executives have a critical responsibility to identify serious risks, ensure those risks are properly managed, and escalate them to the board.”
Justice Lee rejected other ASIC claims against Mr Bekier related to alleged contravening conduct in approving a course of action by the company without reasonably foreseeing the risks.
The judgement described as a “vast” and “complex” judgement with multiple claims against nine remaining officers.
“We acknowledge that the Federal Court found the non-executive directors did not breach their duties in this case,” said ASIC’s Mr Longo.
“ASIC will always require directors and executives to meet the highest standards of corporate governance because of the crucial role they play in maintaining trust.”
In February 2024, Star’s former Chief Casino Officer, Gregory Hawkins, was ordered to pay a penalty of $180,000 and disqualified from managing corporations for 18 months, while former Chief Financial Officer, Harry Theodore, was ordered to pay a $60,000 penalty and was disqualified from managing corporations for nine months.
The agreement was related to breaches of the Corporations Act made against them in terms of Star offering services to the Sun City Chinese gambling junket.
