Amid the sensational testimony about Star Entertainment chief executive Matt Bekier’s ill-tempered desk slamming and his berating of the authors of an independent report lies the more sinister concern that the report, which was critical of the casino’s approach to money laundering issues, was kept from the financial crimes regulator.

Indeed, the royal commission style review into Star helmed by Adam Bell, SC, heard that Star wrongly claimed legal privilege over the report by KPMG as the reason it was not given to the financial crimes regulator, AUSTRAC.

This is at odds with KPMG’s letter of engagement that explicitly stated its report did not constitute legal advice.

This lack of transparency may be more controversial than the damning 2018 report that painted a clear picture of Star as falling short of KPMG’s expectations in the monitoring of transactions and junkets. The report detailed how the casino group was falling short of its anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing obligations. It also showed Star was failing to do its due diligence on high-rollers playing on junket gambling tours.

But what transpired when the final KPMG report was eventually seen by the audit committee of the board was nothing short of a dummy spit by Bekier who refused to accept it and initially declared it to be “factually wrong”.

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The two KPMG partners who had been invited to attend the meeting sat outside and were not brought in to explain the report or answer questions.

It wasn’t the response either had bargained on.

KPMG partner Alexander Graham, who gave evidence before the hearing on Tuesday, said he was berated at a subsequent meeting by Bekier. “I recall the CEO turning over pages pointing to things saying ‘this is wrong’ (then) turning the page saying ‘that is wrong’,” Graham said.