Infrastructure NSW kept Grocon scion Daniel Grollo in the dark about the progress of crucial negotiations with Crown Resorts and Lendlease regarding sight lines at Central Barangaroo while it held secret discussions with other investors involved in the project, a court has heard.

The May and August 2019 exchanges, via a confidential WhatsApp channel, between Tim Robertson, an executive director at INSW, and David Matheson and Gawain Smart, managing directors at Canada’s Oxford Properties, which at the time was the office investment partner of Grocon’s $2 billion project, were read out at a NSW Supreme Court hearing by Grocon’s barrister, Michael Hodges, QC.