The company admitted to the breaches and agreed on the fine with the Department of Internal Affairs
Violations of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML-CFT) Act 2009 are set to syphon $5.06m from Christchurch Casinos Ltd’s (CCL) coffers.
In a decision released by the High Court (Christchurch registry) yesterday 6 October, judge Rachel Dunningham indicated that CCL had entered into a settlement agreement with the Department of Internal Affairs after confessing to seven breaches of its AML-CFT obligations.
CCL’s conduct was first flagged in 2019. The company appointed accounting firms Crowe and BDO to conduct independent audits of its risk assessment and AML-CFT programme as required by law; reports from 2019 and 2021 suggested that CCL should update its AML-CFT programme and enhance the automation of its electronic monitoring system to limit errors resulting from manual data entry.
The Department of Internal Affairs conducted an on-site inspection of CCL in April 2021 and found that CCL’s customer due diligence and account monitoring approach was lacking. The department called on CCL to remediate the deficiencies; however, the company challenged the department’s findings and failed to follow the remediation direction.
