ASIC’s Star action names Heap

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

13 December 2022

A day after being nominated by Perpetual to join its board, Pendal director, Ben Heap, has been named in a wide-ranging Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) action against former Star Entertainment directors and officers.

Heap was yesterday named by Perpetual as one of three Pendal directors to be invited to join the Perpetual board but ASIC today announced it had commenced civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court against 11 current and former directors and officers of The Star Entertainment Group for alleged breaches of their duties under the Corporations Act.

ASIC said its case included claims against members of the Star Board between 2017 and 2019 being John O Neill (former Chair), Matthias Bekier (former Managing Director and CEO), Kathleen Lahey, Richard Sheppard, Gerard Bradley, Sally Pitkin, Benjamin Heap and Zlatko Todorcevski.

ASIC alleges the Board members approved the expansion of Star’s relationship with certain individuals with reported criminal links, rather than addressing money laundering risk by inquiring into whether Star should be dealing with them. ASIC also alleges that Board members, when provided with information about money laundering risks affecting Star, did not take steps to make further enquiries of management about those critical risks and that this was a breach of their director duty obligations.

ASIC further alleges that Bekier and Star executives Paula Martin (former Company Secretary and Group General Counsel) and Greg Hawkins (former Chief Casino Officer) breached their duties by:

• not adequately addressing the money laundering risks that arose from dealing with Asian gambling junket Suncity and its funder, as well as continuing to deal with them despite becoming aware of reports of criminal links; and
• not appropriately escalating money laundering issues to the Board.

“As to Ms Martin and Harry Theodore (former Chief Financial Officer), ASIC also alleges they knowingly permitted misleading statements being provided to National Australia Bank (NAB) regarding the use of debit cards issued by China Union Pay International Ltd (CUP) at NAB ATMs located on Star’s premises. Those statements disguised the fact that Star was permitting CUP cards to be used for gambling, which was prohibited by CUP. ASIC is aware over $900 million was obtained by Star customers using CUP cards in NAB ATMs from 2013 to 2019. ASIC also alleges that they, and Mr Bekier, failed to report these matters to Star’s Board,” the ASIC statement said.

Perpetual’s announcement this week named Heap as chair of the Star Entertainment Group.