Former casino executives found to have breached their duties by failing to properly manage serious risks at one of Australia’s major casinos
Former Star Entertainment Group executives Mathias Bekier and Paula Martin have been disqualified from managing businesses and ordered to pay pecuniary penalties for breaching their duties at the casino operator.
Australia’s Federal Court has ordered Bekier, the former CEO and managing director, to pay a pecuniary penalty of A$700,000 and disqualified him from managing corporations for six years.
Martin, Star’s former general counsel, company secretary, and chief legal and risk officer, has been ordered to pay a pecuniary penalty of $400,000 and disqualified from managing corporations for seven years.
Justice Michael Lee also ordered Bekier and Martin to pay 45 per cent of the costs of the proceeding by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC).
The Court previously found that both Bekier and Martin breached their duties to Star Entertainment in relation to their handling of the risks associated with money laundering and criminal activity.
“Senior executives have a critical responsibility to identify, escalate and properly manage serious risks within their organisations,” said ASIC chair Sarah Court. “These failures occurred in a highly regulated environment and contributed to significant governance breakdowns at Star.
“Penalties of this scale reflect the seriousness of their conduct and send a strong message to other senior executives of listed companies that failures of this type are unacceptable.’
In relation to Bekier, Justice Lee said: “Senior executives of casino operators, and public companies conducting enterprises pregnant with risks more broadly, must understand that failures of the kind established by the contraventions may attract substantial personal consequences.”
In respect of Martin he found that “the community is entitled to expect that a solicitor occupying such positions and having such responsibilities, within one of Australia’s largest casino operators, will display professional independence, accuracy and judgment of a high order. The conduct established … represented a very serious departure from those standards” and that “Ms Martin knew of a miscellany of alarming information pertaining to [an overseas gambling junket] … She was required to report such matters to the Board but failed to do so.
“This is all the more concerning when considered against the backdrop of Ms Martin being the most senior solicitor employed by Star”; and that “the more pervasive the failures of governance and culture become, the greater the obligation upon those entrusted with legal and risk responsibilities to insist upon compliance with legal obligations and proper standards of corporate conduct.”
ASIC commenced civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court in December 2022 against 11 current and former directors and officers of Star for alleged breaches of their duties.
In February 2025, Star’s former chief casino officer Gregory Hawkins and chief financial officer Harry Theodore admitted to breaches of their duties and were penalised by the Court.
Hawkins was ordered to pay a penalty of A$180,000 and disqualified from managing corporations for 18 months, while Theodore was ordered to pay a A$60,000 penalty and disqualified from managing corporations for nine months.
On 5 March of this year, the Federal Court found Bekier and Martin contravened the law by breaching their duties under section 180 of the Corporations Act 2001.
The Court dismissed ASIC’s case against the seven former non-executive directors after finding they did not breach their duties.
Shares in Star Entertainment Group Ltd (ASX:SGR) closed 1.03 per cent higher at A$0.098 in Sydney Monday.