Business
Federal Court Fines the Star Entertainment Group $260 Million for Money Laundering
The penalty concludes a long-running legal battle over systemic failures to prevent criminal activity at the casino operator’s venues in Sydney and Queensland.
By Headlinne · Compiled from reporting by ABC, Age and Nine.com.au
The Federal Court of Australia ordered The Star Entertainment Group to pay a $260 million penalty on Wednesday for repeated violations of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
Justice Cameron Moore determined the fine, which will be paid in four installments over 19 months, after the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC sought a $400 million penalty against the operator.
The ruling addresses systemic failures at the company’s casinos in Sydney and the Gold Coast, as well as its operations in Brisbane, where high-risk gamblers were permitted to move large sums of money.
The penalty is intended to deter the company from prioritizing financial gain over regulatory obligations, according to Justice Moore.
"In effect, Star put profit over compliance and did so on a large scale," said Justice Cameron Moore in his ruling.
The casino operator had previously argued in court that any fine exceeding $100 million could force the business into liquidation.
However, Soo Kim, the chairman of The Star, stated on Wednesday that the company is now in a stronger financial position than it was a year ago.
"We are fortunate to be in a financial circumstance that’s quite a bit different than even 12 months ago," said Soo Kim, the chairman of The Star.
Kim added that the company expects to meet the payment schedule using existing cash reserves and positive cash flow from its venues without needing to raise additional capital.
AUSTRAC chief executive Brendan Thomas said the court’s decision reflects the gravity of the company’s conduct, which exposed the Australian financial system to significant risks.
"The Court found The Star did not simply fail to complete the right checks. It allowed high-risk customers to gamble without properly establishing where their money came from," said Brendan Thomas, the chief executive of AUSTRAC.
Justice Moore noted that the fine would have been higher if the company had not undertaken significant remediation efforts and already paid other penalties for overlapping conduct.
The Star’s shares remained in a trading halt following the announcement, with trading expected to resume on Friday.
Reporting from
- ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting CorporationBalanced
Star Casino fined $260 million for historical money laundering violations
- The AgeBalanced
‘Profit over compliance’: Star hit with $260m fine for money laundering breaches
- Nine.com.auBalanced
Star Casino given monster $260 million fine for money laundering breaches
How this article was made: Headlinne wrote it with AI from the 3 reports listed above. Direct quotes are checked word for word against those reports, every number appears in at least one of them, and no other sentence is copied from one. Photos are from those reports and credited to them. Each report’s page on Headlinne links to the outlet’s original.