Slater and Gordon Lawyers confirmed this week that it is investigating a class action following reports that the company’s market value dropped by almost $1 billion in 2018.
As Sydney Morning Herald reports, two confidential reports provided to the Star board in October 2018, warned that its anti-money-laundering risk-assessment system “does not consider terrorism financing as required by the AML-CTF (anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism financing) Act”.
The report added that the Star had “no documented money-laundering risk assessment, or risk-assessment methodology”.
The day after this was published, the Star’s share price fell by more than 20 per cent.
The class action, brought forward by local law firm Maurice Blackburn, alleges that the Star “engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct, breached its continuous disclosure obligations and conducted its affairs contrary to the interests of members as a whole in the period”.
Slater and Gordon’s class action practice group leader Emma Pelka-Caven said her team is now investigating whether shareholders had suffered losses because of “materially incorrect information being available to the market”.
“We consider that the information released may give rise to a claim on behalf of shareholders against the company,” Ms Pelka-Caven said.
“At the time they purchase shares in a listed company, investors are entitled to assume that all of the material information relevant to its financial position has been disclosed.”
Neil Griffiths
Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.
Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.
