Chris Cass
Partner in forensic practice, Deloitte
Cass is a Chartered Accountant who has gained extensive and diverse regulatory and forensic review experience with many of Australia’s leading asset and wealth managers, including local subsidiaries of the world’s largest organisations in these sectors. Cass’ experience spans commercial, regulatory, law enforcement and professional services organisations. He has worked in more than 25 countries advising on AML and related risk management, regulatory issues, operational excellence and the development of sustainable solutions and cultures.
Cass is regularly engaged as an independent expert on enforceable undertakings levied by Australian regulatory bodies. His expertise is recognised by Australian and APAC government and regulatory agencies and he has advised from Hong Kong to Wellington on anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulatory issues, particularly around trans-national and cross-border challenges facing financial institutions.
He has recently been involved in advising an Australian government task force examining the extent and impact of trans-national tax evasion, particularly through offshore financial centres. He is familiar with the challenges of identifying and obtaining end-user due diligence on complex commercial transactions. He understands the KYC implications of complex corporate structures and the interrelationship of agency relationship/investment mandates.
Cass is particularly skilled at applying the knowledge gained from regulatory compliance initiatives to related organisational challenges, including pending regulatory changes. He adopts a strategic approach to the risk, compliance, operational and commercial issues, including “unforeseen” consequences. Specifically, in recent years Cass has designed and undertaken a number of large, complex KYC exercises for many of Australia’s leading institutions in the wealth and asset management sectors, often under significant domestic and global regulatory pressure. These KYC remediation reviews have included institutions operating across Asia Pacific.