{"id":18903,"date":"2021-06-11T14:59:10","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T14:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=18903"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:40:29","slug":"victorias-royal-commission-extends-inquiry-into-crown-resorts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/victorias-royal-commission-extends-inquiry-into-crown-resorts","title":{"rendered":"Victoria’s Royal Commission extends inquiry into Crown Resorts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Federal Court judge Raymond Finkelstein has ordered an extension to the inquiry up to October 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- Victoria’s Royal Commission into\u00a0Crown Resorts will continue up to October 15<\/strong>\u00a0after the government approved judge Raymond Finkelstein’s request for an extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finkelstein also asked for an increase in the commission\u2019s funding from AU$10m to AU$19.75m<\/strong> to continue investigating Crown Resorts suitability to maintain its licence for its Melbourne casino<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge leading the state of Victoria\u2019s inquiry was originally due to\u00a0<\/strong>release his report by August 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to local media,\u00a0Melissa Horne<\/strong>, minister for consumer affairs, gaming and liquor regulation, said: “The evidence we have seen\u00a0coming out of the Royal Commission\u00a0<\/strong>to date is significant.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We\u2019ll provide the Commissioner with the resources and time required to complete this important work<\/strong> as requested.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the last session of\u00a0public hearings into Crown Resorts<\/strong>, Ann Siegers, Crown’s chief risk officer, referred to the\u00a0arrest of 19 Crown executives<\/a>\u00a0in China in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siegers, who joined Crown Resorts in 2017, admitted that a review of the incident should have been undertaken immediately to be effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said: \u201cBy the time\u00a0I joined Crown many of the people and individuals were no longer in place\u00a0<\/strong>and therefore it was too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siegers also added that\u00a0Crown Resorts has made efforts in the past months\u00a0<\/strong>to reach suitability in the state of New South Wales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May,\u00a0Nick Stokes<\/strong>,\u00a0Crown Resorts\u2019 head of financial crime<\/a>, said Crown\u2019s former legal chief\u00a0Joshua Preston had ignored his concerns about money-laundering risks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stokes said he\u00a0tried to increase the anti-money laundering team\u00a0<\/strong>at Crown Resorts, which only had three staff members, but that Preston had said it wasn\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to ABC Newspaper, Stokes said: \u201cHe would hear me out and he would listen to my views, but on many occasions, he was of the view that\u00a0“casinos had always been that way\u00a0<\/strong>and that a casino\u2019s not a bank, and the same rules didn\u2019t quite apply.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Stokes said things had changed<\/strong> at Crown Resorts and that he now has a team of 20 anti-money laundering staff<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Federal Court judge Raymond Finkelstein has ordered an extension to the inquiry up to October 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":18904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Victoria's Royal Commission into Crown Resorts has been extended to October 15 with increased funding to continue investigating the operator's suitability for its Melbourne casino license. The inquiry has highlighted significant governance failures, including a delayed review of executive arrests in China and former legal chief Joshua Preston's alleged disregard for money laundering risks, despite recent efforts by Crown to enhance its AML team.","focusai_entities":"Raymond Finkelstein, Crown Resorts, Melissa Horne, Ann Siegers, Nick Stokes, Joshua Preston, ABC Newspaper","focusai_location":"Australia, Victoria, Melbourne, New South Wales, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Crown's License?","query":"What specific conditions or remedial actions might the Royal Commission impose on Crown Resorts to retain its Melbourne casino license, and what is the projected timeline for their implementation?"},{"label":"Broader Regulatory Implications?","query":"How might the findings and recommendations from the Victoria Royal Commission influence regulatory compliance standards and governance frameworks for other major iGaming and land-based casino operators across Australia and other jurisdictions?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,439],"tags":[14657,23907],"class_list":["post-18903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-legal-news","tag-crown-resorts","tag-land-based-casino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18903"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18933,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18903\/revisions\/18933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}