Australia’s Star Entertainment Group has conceded it remains unsuitable to operate its Sydney casino unsupervised but says it should be found suitable to do so subject to certain conditions and pending the extension of the term of Manager Nicholas Weeks.
The company’s legal team has this week provided closing submissions in response to the arguments presented by counsel assisting a second inquiry into Star’s suitability, which has called for a second finding of unsuitability given revelations outlined over the past month.
As reported by Inside Asian Gaming, these include discussions between former Star CEO Robbie Cooke and Chairman David Foster discussing “going to war” with Weeks and the regulator, the falsifying of records around mandatory welfare checks on patrons, and a malfunctioning ticket-in, cash-out terminal that saw customers withdraw AU$3.2 million before the error was detected.
Barrister Bret Walker SC, representing Star, agreed during his closing remarks on Wednesday that such behavior by the company and its former senior executives was “deplorable” but argued, “All those matters are in the past … They are so striking in their particular facts that they present no inherent likelihood at all of repetition, nor do they show any pattern of conduct.
“The responses to manager’s reports [and] the private and inappropriate posturing ought to be regarded as deplorable but not material in weighing adversely against the suitability into the future of … our clients.”
Imtiaz Ahmed SC, also acting on behalf of Star, noted that the actions of Cooke proved to be particularly damaging to the company’s efforts towards remediation given the collapse of his relationship with the NSW Independent Casino Commission – which ultimately lost faith in his abilities – but said his recent departure marked a key step forward.
“There was undoubtedly a narrative that emerged in the latter half of 2023 of it being ‘us and them’ in relation to the regulator,” Ahmed said. “That’s coupled with the fact that Mr Cooke appears to have had a management style that resulted in the siloing of information within the company. We say that those are all matters that are likely to have impeded the cultural form within the company.”
Commissioner Adam Bell SC is due to hand down his final report before the end of this month.
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