The boardput out the market release and advertisement on July 31,2019 in response to a series of stories inThe Age,The Sydney Morning Herald and60 Minutes that pointed out that Crown casino's licensed junket operators had links to organised crime,drug and sex trafficking and money laundering.
Mr Preston said he and the board were made aware of errors in the statement in the days after the ASX announcement but they had not corrected it to his knowledge. It is unlawful for a listed company or its officers to provide materially false or misleading information to the Australian Stock Exchange. There is no suggestion the board intended the statement to be misleading.
A Crown source close to the board said the Melbourne-based casino group had been given inaccurate or misleading information by senior company managers prior to issuing the 2019 statement and that certain directors now regretted the decision to release it and the advertisement in response to the news reports. Crown did not respond to a formal request for comment.
The statement was intended to reassure regulators,the public and politicians that the gambling giant had not negligently partnered with suspected crime bosses in Macau. It was signed by Crown's board of directors including former politician Helen Coonan,who is Crown's chairman,former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou,former federal public servant Jane Halton,former advertising supremo Harold Mitchell,long-time Packer family lieutenant James Alexander,former Qantas boss Geoff Dixon and former Australian chief medical officer John Horvath.
Corporate records show high-stakes gamblers recruited through the Suncity junket laid down more than $2.3 billion at Crown Resorts'Melbourne and Perth casinos in the space of three months during 2015.