Yesterday the Federal Court found Tabcorp guilty of contravening regulations requiring gambling companies to report suspicious activity to regulators. Tabcorp will pay a fine of $45 million, the largest civil penalty in corporate Australia's history.
The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 requires gambling companies to:
- Enrol with AUSTRAC (the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, Australia's financial intelligence agency)
- Establish and maintain an Anti-money laundering and Counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) program
- Identify customers collecting large winnings; and
- Report suspicious matters, including suspected money laundering and credit card fraud, to AUSTRAC.
The Court found that Tabcorp contravened the Act on 108 occasions over a five-year period. AUSTRAC CEO Paul Jevtovic said yesterday that "In our view, Tabcorp had a corporate culture indifferent to meaningful AML/CTF compliance and risk mitigation until we intervened."
This is an encouraging result given Australia's poor score on the Corruption Perceptions Index, released last month by Transparency International. Katharine Toney, an Associate Director in our Sydney office, discussed the release in our recent Forensic Matters publication.
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