Star Entertainment executive chair David Foster in sudden exit

Star Entertainment executive chair David Foster has left the group, amid claims he fuelled already deteriorating relations with the NSW Independent Casino Commission.

The Star casino in Sydney. Picture: Bloomberg

Star Entertainment executive chair David Foster has left the group suddenly after a tumultuous week fronting the Bell inquiry, with one of his board colleagues now accusing him of fuelling an acrimonious relationship with the regulator.

Non-executive director Deborah Page said Mr Foster, who was replaced over the weekend by Anne Ward, had worsened poor relations with the NSW ­Independent Casino Commission by allowing ousted chief executive Robbie Cooke to issue an exit statement that appeared to blame NICC chief commissioner Philip Crawford for his predicament.

She said by this time Mr Cooke had become overly emotional and in those circumstances it was not possible to continue with him as chief executive. “The job had almost killed him,” she said. “He worked so hard.”

Ms Page said she was “really disappointed” that Mr Foster negotiated an arrangement that allowed Mr Cooke to release the statement.

“The board strongly encouraged the chairman to stop this happening,” she said.

“I personally did not want that statement issued and others expressed the same view.”

Ms Page said Star would probably need continued management by the regulator as well as a new structure so it could not return to a “false” business model that allowed it to profit from criminal behaviour.

Star shares rose 6.4 per cent to 42c on Monday but have lost about 17 per cent of their value since the inquiry kicked off on April 15 .

They have dropped almost 65 per cent in the past year.

David Foster appearing at the inquiry into The Star.

The inquiry heard that a further three staff members had been terminated for falsifying welfare checks on gamblers, underscoring the fact that the company was still making regulatory missteps as it battled to keep the doors of its Sydney casino open.

The exits followed seven sackings earlier after an audit of the checks, which require casino staff to approach and speak to customers if they have been gambling for more than three hours.

Ms Page also revealed the board was reluctant to sack Mr Cooke last year because he was needed to save it from looming litigation over its $3.9bn Queen’s Wharf project in Brisbane. While the NICC had decided it had lost confidence in Mr Cooke in December, his departure at that time could have hurt the company.

“The impact of parting ways with Mr Cooke at this point in time would have been so severe that we may not be sitting here today,” said Ms Page. “And I refer specifically to the Multiplex ­negotiations.”

Last December The Star settled a threatened legal battle with construction giant Multiplex over cost blowouts at its Queen’s Wharf project in Brisbane’s CBD. Mr Cooke left the business in March after the board decided his position was no longer tenable.

Earlier Ms Ward told the inquiry that the company could not be considered suitable to hold a licence and may need a further period of supervision when the regulator’s special manager Nicholas Weeks’ term ends in September.

“With the right leadership, the Star can be transformed and possibly within six months,” Ms Ward said. “But it is possible the NICC would form a view that the current arrangements should be extended beyond September 30.

“It is possible that there could be a different form of external monitorship with different ­conditions attached to the ­licence.”

Ms Ward said the board met in the absence of Mr Foster over the weekend and decided he had should go as chair.

Mr Foster, who will remain in the role of chief executive until a permanent replacement is found, left after the board decided “new leadership was needed”.

Star, in an announcement to the ASX on Monday morning, said Mr Foster would remain as a director of relevant subsidiary company boards until they could be reconstituted by individuals holding necessary regulatory ­approvals.

Mr Foster and Mr Cooke gave evidence at the inquiry last week, exposing a fractious relationship between the company’s executive team and the NSW Independent Casino Commission and its special manager Nicholas Weeks.

Along with Ms Ward and Ms Page, Michael Issenberg, Peter Hodgson and Toni Thornton will go head-to-head this week with inquiry boss Adam Bell SC, who will ultimately recommend whether the troubled casino group can retain its Sydney ­licence. Mr Bell’s first inquiry in 2022 resulted in the installation of a special manager to run Star’s casinos in both Sydney and Queensland, after he found breaches of money laundering rules and other misconduct.

Caspar Conde, counsel assisting the inquiry, asked Ms Ward whether “it was not a surprise incidents have emerged at the Sydney casino” given it did not have a permanent chief executive for an extended period.

“Incidents will always emerge in businesses of this size,” Ms Ward said. “I think I would have preferred to have a chief executive of the Sydney property earlier but as to the direct correlation of having a permanent CEO I’m not sure what you are suggesting.”

She said while the company had reset its remediation program, it had no intention at this stage to extend the deadline for those reforms.