{"id":28693,"date":"2022-04-05T06:55:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T09:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=28693"},"modified":"2026-04-23T09:54:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T12:54:55","slug":"star-continued-to-work-with-suncity-despite-concerns-inquiry-hears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/star-continued-to-work-with-suncity-despite-concerns-inquiry-hears","title":{"rendered":"Star continued to work with Suncity despite concerns, inquiry hears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Skye Arnott, Star\u2019s chief financial crime officer, has admitted the company continued to work closely with Suncity despite a 2019 report on illicit activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- On a new day of public hearings into the Star Entertainment Group in New South Wales, the ILGA inquiry has heard\u00a0Skye Arnott, Star\u2019s chief financial crime officer<\/strong>, speak about Star Entertainment\u2019s close\u00a0dealings with Suncity Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arnott told the inquiry that\u00a0the company continued to work closely with Suncity despite a 2019 report\u00a0<\/strong>on illegal activities.\u00a0The report, originally released by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, claimed that\u00a0Suncity laundered US$2m<\/strong>\u00a0in cash every day between 2013 and 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arnott claimed her decision to continue relations with SunCity was based on her concerns about the Jockey Club report. But it wasn’t until 2020 that Star first turned its attention to an arrangement at Salon 95.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week ago, the inquiry hear that in Salon 95,\u00a0junkets handed out non-transferable chips to players<\/a>, and if they won, exchanged those chips for premium chips and then back to non-transferable chips. Each broker received a set of non-transferable chips, offered in Australian or Hong Kong dollars. The room was not mentioned in The Star\u2019s planning submissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arnott admitted that Star Entertainment did not take prompt action against apparent fraud.\u00a0She was also questioned over CCTV footage from 2018 that showed\u00a0Suncity staff putting piles of cash in a brown paper bag\u00a0<\/strong>at the venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Star Sydney’s Suncity operations ceased in November 2021, following the\u00a0arrest of Suncity’s founder, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa<\/a>, over cross-border gambling and money laundering accusations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Star Entertainment faces class action from shareholders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Investors in the Star Entertainment Group have filed a class action lawsuit <\/strong>amid the heavy public scrutiny of the group\u2019s Sydney casino operations. Investors are seeking compensation for alleged misleading or deceptive representations made by Star regarding its compliance with regulatory obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit alleges that Star led investors to believe the group was a model casino operator when in fact it failed to curb corruption, money laundering and bribery. Star\u2019s stock price fell by more than 25 per cent <\/strong>after media reports of money laundering and other misconduct in 2021, wiping more than $1bn off the company\u2019s market value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead plaintiff David Lynch <\/strong>said: \u201cAs an investor, I expect that licensed operators that are publicly listed will operate following the law and that there are appropriate checks and balances to ensure they do so. I am dismayed by the apparent scale of Star\u2019s misconduct that is now being revealed in the public hearings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior associate Ben Zocco<\/strong> told ABC: \u201cWhen investors purchase shares in a listed company, they are entitled to assume that all of the material information relevant to its financial position had been disclosed to the market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skye Arnott, Star\u2019s chief financial crime officer, has admitted the company continued to work closely with Suncity despite a 2019 report on illicit activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Star Entertainment Group's Chief Financial Crime Officer admitted the company continued dealings with Suncity Group despite a 2019 report on illicit activities, including alleged money laundering. This revelation, alongside details of unapproved junket operations and delayed action on fraud, has led to a class-action lawsuit from investors seeking compensation for alleged misleading representations regarding regulatory compliance.","focusai_entities":"Skye Arnott, Star Entertainment Group, Suncity Group, Hong Kong Jockey Club, ILGA, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, David Lynch, Ben Zocco, ABC","focusai_location":"Australia, New South Wales, Hong Kong, Sydney","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 (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Governance Framework Review","query":"What specific enhancements to Star Entertainment Group's corporate governance and internal control frameworks are being implemented to prevent future AML and regulatory compliance failures?"},{"label":"Market Impact Assessment","query":"Beyond the immediate financial penalties and class-action settlement, what is the projected long-term impact of these regulatory findings on Star Entertainment Group's market share, brand equity, and licensing viability in key jurisdictions?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,156,158],"tags":[229,23911,24103],"class_list":["post-28693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-star-entertainment-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28693","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=28693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28719,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28693\/revisions\/28719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}