Regulatory compliance

Gaming licences are extremely valuable assets to the group. These are issued for an indefinite period (with the exception of the Eastern Cape- based licences) and are maintained through a strict compliance culture including compliance with all laws and regulations to which the group is subject.

This strict culture of compliance is applied to all aspects of the group’s business including areas as diverse as hospitality hygiene, liquor licences, fire and life safety regulations, corruption, insider trading and competition law.

Despite the significant cost involved, the group treats compliance as a necessary investment and not an unavoidable cost, and recognises that compliance yields benefits such as an enhanced financial and operational internal control environment.

Key performance indicators

	2015	2014
Gaming regulation breaches	Nil	Nil
Fines imposed for other regulatory breaches	Nil	Nil
Fines imposed for breaches of law	Nil	Nil

2015 performance

Regulatory compliance

The South African trading environment is highly regulated and compliance with the regulations is critical to our licence to trade. The broader trading environment is becoming increasingly complex and is governed by legislation and policies, much of it relatively new, relating to competition, customer protection, privacy, environmental, health and safety, money laundering and labour issues. A number of statutes provide for monitoring and enforcement by regulatory bodies. The audit and risk committee is updated with all material changes to legislation and regulations twice a year and the board is updated quarterly.

The casino operations are regulated by the provincial gambling boards and, from an oversight perspective, by the National Gambling Board. The standards of regulation within the industry are in line with global best practice. Gaming regulation compliance, which is of particular importance in retaining casino licences, is achieved through the implementation of internal control procedures and compliance policies, compliance committees, an anonymous tip-off system, interventions with regulators and law enforcement agencies, centralised specialist understanding of the interpretation and application of legislation, internal and external compliance audits and by creating a compliance culture through training. Compliance with the terms of a licence is monitored by the relevant provincial gambling board on an ongoing basis and certain provinces may conduct quarterly, bi-annual and annual inspections.

During the year, the group participated in the public consultation process in respect of proposed legislative and policy amendments which may have a regulatory compliance impact on the group’s casino and hotel operations. The most significant contributions with regard to gaming were made in respect of proposed amendments to various provincial gambling acts and regulations and the Financial Intelligence Centre Act. With the exception of the review of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, which may cause more onerous regulatory obligations on casinos and which is still under consideration, the group’s participation resulted in favourable outcomes.

The group also participated in industry comments through the CASA to government on the proposed National Gambling Policy and National Liquor Policy, which may in future have an impact on operations.

Tsogo Sun ensures that the group complies with all applicable legislation in all countries in which it operates and, where possible, builds constructive relationships with the regulatory bodies. There were no significant breaches of any legislation and no significant fines imposed during the year.

There were no reported incidents regarding breaches of customer privacy or losses of customer data.

Looking ahead

Material areas of regulation are being included in the combined assurance framework which will be completed during the year to ensure that all relevant legislation and regulations continue to be applied and adhered to.