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 r