Pratt siblings argue love child’s case will be ‘intrusive’, ‘time consuming’

Visy magnate Richard Pratt’s children Anthony, Fiona and Heloise say their half siblings’ legal claim for a slice of the family fortune should not go ahead in their latest court filings.

Paula Hitchcock and her half siblings Anthony Pratt, Heloise Waislitz and Fiona Geminder. Picture: Supplied

One of Australia’s wealthiest men, Anthony Pratt, and his siblings say pre-trial searches for documents in a court fight launched by their father’s love child will be “intrusive” and time-consuming if the money fight is allowed to go ahead.

Paula Hitchcock, 27, is trying to prove she is legally entitled to a slice of the Pratt family trust, asking the NSW Supreme Court to declare her a “discretionary object” of the fortune and that a deed of exclusion – which fairly cut her out as a child, according to her siblings – should be voided.

After she first lodged her claim about two years ago, Ms Hitchcock’s half siblings including Mr Pratt, Heloise Waislitz and Fiona Geminder, said in legal documents filed in late June their half-sister’s case should not go ahead and her requests to update legal claims should be dismissed.

Paula Hitchcock leaves court with her husband Nassib Thoumi. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“In the present case, the plaintiff’s claim ought not be permitted to go forward given the circumstances that … the plaintiff has now been permitted six attempts to plead her claim, but the claim remains deficient,” the Pratt sibling’s submission read.

“It fails to plead necessary primary facts that would support serious allegations of fraud and impropriety,” it read.

“If the claim proceeds, it will involve an intrusive and no doubt time-consuming discovery process (including on the issue as to whether Mrs Pratt behaved as a parent toward the plaintiff since the time the plaintiff was a small child).”

It emerged during court hearings this year that Ms Hitchcock intends to show she is entitled to the trust because she was always acknowledged as a member of the family by her biological father Richard Pratt and his wife, Jeanne.

She said she was invited to attend weekly Shabbat dinner with the Pratt family at their Melbourne home, and joined in their holidays.

Further, Ms Hitchcock has claimed she was paid three times out of her father’s fortune, which proved she was a beneficiary of the trust.

The Pratt siblings alleged Ms Hitchcock has failed to put on proper evidence to prove elements of her case, and urged NSW Supreme Court judge Michael Meek to refuse some of her requests to update her pleadings in the matter.

Visy chairman Anthony Pratt and his siblings have lodged further submissions in a court case lodged by their half-sister, Paula Hitchcock. Picture: Glenn Hunt/The Australian

“The Plaintiff (Ms Hitchcock) complains of the defendant’s (Pratt trust and siblings) ‘fundamental misconception’ of the court’s function. With respect, the misapprehension is hers,” the latest filings, seen by The Australian, say.

“A basic problem with the pleading (not being exhaustive) is that it alleges primary facts that, if proved, would not provide a basis for the inferential facts she needs to establish.

“If that is correct, the claim has no reasonable prospects of success, and should be struck out.”

The Pratt siblings argued Ms Hitchcock must plead a fact to demonstrate her allegations that Mr Pratt, Ms Waislitz and Ms Geminder, for example, were legally dishonest and improper by excluding her from the Pratt Holdings Trust.

They say she has not.

“A related problem is that the plaintiff pleads matters (dishonesty) which must be particularised in certain (well-established) respects, and to a certain standard,” court documents filed on behalf of the siblings argued.

“The failure to give such particulars warrants the claim being struck out.”

Ms Hitchcock’s latest submissions in the court fight claim the fortune’s trustee, Pratt Group Holdings Pty Ltd, “seeks summary disposal of the proceeding” — meaning they want it scrapped entirely.

“The Siblings, for practical purposes, seek the same result,” Ms Hitchcock’s pleadings read.

Ms Hitchcock, through her latest pleadings, claimed she sought to update her case after “discovering certain records of the Trust, which (ostensibly) evidence payments made to her from the Trust at a time after she had (purportedly) been excluded from it.”

Justice Meek has reserved his preliminary judgement in the matter.

Originally published as Pratt siblings argue love child’s case will be ‘intrusive’, ‘time consuming’