Reclusive billionaire James Packer has made a bombshell admission at a Perth royal commission into Crown Casino.
James Packer has conceded there were many “things that should have been done differently” at Crown Perth when he was at the helm – and he should have quit rather than missing board meetings for three years as criminal junkets infiltrated.
The probe is the third faced by Crown Resorts over now substantiated allegations of money laundering at the West Australian casino and also at its Melbourne venue.
The reclusive billionaire and major shareholder in the gambling giant fronted the WA probe via videolink on Friday, admitting he did not attend a single board meeting of Crown Perth’s Burswood Ltd between 2013 to 2016 after he moved overseas.
Counsel assisting Patricia Cahill suggested that if he had been “more active and engaged”, Burswood Ltd may have been more aware of the risk of money laundering through its Riverbank Investments account, which was closed by ANZ in 2014 over regulatory compliance issues.
Mr Packer said he “should have attended or resigned”, and an account closure “absolutely would have been a red flag” but claimed he was “not informed” of the risk of criminal infiltration through high roller junket tours until after 19 Crown staff were arrested in China in 2016 for marketing the business on the mainland, where gambling is illegal.
“You weren’t keeping an eye on things, Mr Packer,” Ms Cahill said, which he rejected.
“I should have resigned or attended, I accept that,” he added.
He agreed he left it to management to ensure risks such as money laundering were mitigated and assumed they were doing enough.
“I had full confidence in the CEO Barry Felstead,” Mr Packer said.
Mr Packer said “at some point the culture slipped”, responding “potentially” after Ms Cahill asked whether that was due to his absence.
The royal commission has been seeking to establish to what extent those who ran the Perth venue functioned independently or at the behest of the parent company in a bid to find out who was most responsible for allowing the money laundering scandal to unfold.
Mr Packer paused lengthily and carefully considered Ms Cahill’s questions about the 2004 to 2016 period, when he was chair of Burswood Ltd, before responding.
He often said he did not recall certain details and that he was “not a lawyer”, and asked Ms Cahill to repeat questions.
Earlier, Mr Packer’s barrister Noel Huntley objected twice when Ms Cahill pressed his client on how the corporate structure operated, describing her line of questioning as “argumentative”.
“I may well have known these things in 2006. I can’t remember now,” the businessman had responded.
He admitted he could not recall which specific subsidiary held the Crown Perth gaming licence.
Asked if that mattered to him, he replied: “What mattered to me was that the company was operating and behaving well, and that if that wasn’t happening that information should flow to the board ASAP.”
Mr Packer disagreed with testimony by former Crown Resorts director and his board nominee John Poynton that the overwhelming power rested with the parent company.
He said Burswood Ltd only did not have the authority to sign off on capital expenditure and redevelopment decisions, with Crown Resorts holding the purse strings.
If Crown Perth didn’t want someone appointed, it would not happen, Mr Packer said.
He said that in hindsight, Crown Perth should have had more independent directors and agreed with Ms Cahill’s proposition that it was “overseeing itself”, which was a poor governance structure.
Asked if there was anyone on the board with anti-money laundering expertise, he replied: “I don’t believe there was.”
“Looking back, there were many oversights, things that should have been done differently.
“I did not believe at that point in time that Crown Perth were engaged in money laundering.”
Mr Packer agreed with the general proposition that he would have known all casinos were at risk of being used for the criminal practice.
Asked how he saw his role as Burswood Ltd chair, Mr Packer said it was to ensure Crown Perth “put its best foot forward” and was seen “as a good corporate citizen”.
But he rejected as “completely wrong” Ms Cahill’s assertion he was “disengaged” from all aspects of Crown Perth other than its financial performance.
“I was financially and emotionally committed to Perth.”
It is the second time Mr Packer has testified since the scandal exploded, having fronted last year’s damning NSW inquiry via videolink from his private yacht.
He sat in a modestly furnished room on Friday from an undisclosed location, only revealing he was in a time zone 11 hours behind Perth.
It comes after the damning Victorian royal commission findings recommended slashing CPH’s stake in Crown from 37 per cent to less than 5 per cent.
The NSW inquiry had labelled Mr Packer’s influence “disastrous”, as he was the driving force to secure more junkets.
Victorian Commissioner Raymond Finkelstein agreed.
The NSW inquiry was told that after Mr Packer quit Crown, he received special treatment, with briefings on an almost daily basis under a “controlling shareholder protocol”, which was torn up after the evidence emerged.
Originally published as Crown Resorts’ biggest shareholder and former chair James Packer expresses regret to Perth royal commission
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