Crown to wait for findings of Barangaroo Inquiry

Inquiry commissioner Patricia Bergin is expected to personally brief the members of the ILGA board early next week on the findings.

Commissioner Patricia Bergin. Supplied

James Packer’s Crown Resorts will have to wait longer than expected to know the conditions by which the company can hold on to its licence to operate the Crown Sydney casino at Barangaroo, with the NSW Gaming Regulator confirming it will not publicly release the determinations of an inquiry into the matter on Monday.

In a statement, the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority said that although it will receive the recommendations of inquiry commissioner Patricia Bergin on February 1, the report will not be made publicly available for up to two weeks.

“Authority chair Philip Crawford said no date for the release of the report had been finally determined,” the regulator said.

“Media will be given prior notice of the release date once this is confirmed.”

The Australian understands that Ms Bergin is expected to personally brief the members of the ILGA board early next week on the findings, but it is not known if Crown will be given any forewarning of the report’s contents.

Executives at Consolidated Press Holdings, the company through which Mr Packer retains his 36.7 per cent stake in Crown Resorts, have not received an indication on whether the report contains significant adverse findings against Crown, CPH, their executives and directors or Mr Packer.

Ms Bergin’s recommendations could be devastating to the company and Mr Packer.

Counsel assisting the inquiry recommended Ms Bergin find Crown Resorts to be an unsuitable associate or licensee of the Barangaroo Casino in part due to a “culture of denial and arrogant indifference to regulator compliance” in the fields of money laundering, risk reporting, and associating with international gambling promoters – or junkets – with organised crime links.

Counsel assisting also said Mr Packer was not suitable to be associated with Barangaroo Sydney, that he acted as a “de facto director” of the company after leaving the board in 2018, with his “powerful personality” creating a profits-first culture that encouraged rule bending.

The revelation that Mr Packer sent serious threats to private equity figure Ben Gray in 2015 over a take-private plan that fell through was also used to argue for his unsuitability.

Counsel assisting want Ms Bergin to recommend that Mr Packer not exercise more than 10 per cent of his voting power, and that CPH only have one nominee director sit on Crown’s board instead of the current three.

Crown has pushed back against these recommendations but did concede to no longer share confidential financial information with CPH and Mr Packer under special protocols and to cease having CPH directors take on executive roles.

The company has acted on other expected recommendations, pledging to no longer deal with junkets that are not cleared by regulators where it operates, by overhauling its anti-money-laundering compliance system and by undergoing a process of board and executive renewal.

Australian Resorts CEO Barry Felstead has left the company, CLO Joshua Preston has lost his role as head of AML compliance and independent director Professor John Horvath stepped down after Mr Packer’s stake saved him from being voted off the board at the last AGM.

On Thursday Crown Chairman Helen Coonan announced former SkyCity and Crown Melbourne CEO Nigel Morrison would join the board as an independent director.

It is understood Crown’s biggest institutional investor Perpetual is supportive of the appointment, given Mr Morrison’s previous hands-on knowledge of the Crown business.

But it is expected more will have to be done. Although consensus does not believe Ms Bergin will recommend revoking Crown’s licence outright, it is expected she will push for limits on Mr Packer’s influence, for further renewal at board level – with directors Harold Mitchell and Andrew Demetriou expected to be prime targets after poor showings at the inquiry.

It is also predicted that Ms Bergin could make adverse findings against Crown CFO turn CEO Kenneth Barton after the company conceded – at the 11th hour – that money laundering could have occurred through subsidiary company accounts that Mr Barton reopened on multiple occasions after different banks shut them over suspicious transactions.

Crown Resorts shares closed at $9.60, down 0.83 per cent.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: DAMON KITNEY