The embattled casino group told the world it was cooperating with its regulator. But behind the scenes, it was dreaming up a harebrained scheme to sue them.
Already a subscriber?The livestream of the second public inquiry into The Star Entertainment Group’s Sydney casino attracted only a fraction of the viewers of theThe picture painted in the inquiry was of a chairman and chief executive declaring war on the very people who can save the casino operator’s Sydney licence.
In September 2022, the initial inquiry into Star Sydney, conducted by Adam Bell KC , but it should be given the opportunity to restore suitability under the supervision of a special manager. In other words, Weeks and the ICC hold Star’s most valuable asset in their hands. Instead, the relationship between Star and its regulator completely disintegrated, to the point where ICC lost confidence in Cooke, sparking what can only be described as Foster and Cooke’s declaration of war. It now seems pretty obvious that this “war” footing led to the ICC’s decision to call a second public inquiry – which in turn led to Cooke’s departure as CEO.
Having seen the report, the ICC told Star in December that it had lost confidence in Cooke’s ability to execute on Star’s remediation plan. But after an initially muted response, Star hit back hard at the findings in Weeks’ report via a lengthy and apparently punchy response that was drafted by Cooke and the board, according to Weeks’ evidence; they decided to keep Weeks’ second report from the broader Star leadership team in order to protect morale.
Was Weeks being unreasonable in identifying weaknesses in the way Star approached its path back to suitability? As he himself said, it is important to note that Star has made progress in its reformation, and has been dealing with a range of other problems, including shoring up its balance sheet via capital raisings, battling the NSW government over tax changes and slashing costs to protect earnings.
Star, in Weeks’ view, is still struggling to get together the data and intelligence that would allow it to assess risks in its customer base, including related to financial crime.have expressed frustration with the pressure on Star
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