Pratt siblings stoush with love child Paula Hitchcock over family trust set to play out in new year

Richard Pratt love child Paula’s legal claim to the family trust is scheduled to spill into 2024 as the late billionaire’s daughter seeks a slice of the family fortune.

Shari-Lea Hitchcock and her daughter, Paula Pratt.

Paula Hitchcock’s bid to join the billionaire Pratt family trust is set to return to court early next year, following a brief directions hearing at the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Ms Hitchcock, the love child of late paper and packaging magnate Richard Pratt and Shari-Lea Hitchcock, has launched a legal claim that she is entitled to be a part of the family’s trust, alongside Anthony Pratt – the cardboard box manufacturing and recycling billionaire worth $27.87bn – Heloise Waislitz and Fiona Geminder.

Mr Pratt, Ms Waislitz and Ms Geminder are listed as the second, third and fourth defendants on Ms Hitchcock’s statement of claim against Pratt Group Holdings.

Ms Hitchcock was represented by barrister Stephen Puttick for the five-minute hearing.

Richard Pratt, Paula Pratt, a friend and Shari-Lea Hitchcock. Picture: Facebook

The three Pratt siblings were represented by Minter Ellison Melbourne partner Philip Stefanovski and Pratt Group Holdings was represented by Kalus Kenny Intelex partner Jonathan Kenny.

Mr Kenny was cut off before he could finish his sentence which started: “Registrar … this is a slightly unusual case.”

No discussion took place of particulars in the matter, and all parties agreed to return to court in February next year.

Ms Hitchcock’s updated statement of claim, filed in December last year and supplied to The Australian in October, shows the 26 year old claims the family tried to exclude her from the trust when she was a child by entering into a “deed of exclusion” at the request of one or more Pratt siblings.

“The purpose of the trustee in entering into the purported deed of exclusion was to seek to exclude the plaintiff from the class of general beneficiaries under the trust deed prior to it being determined through paternity testing that the plaintiff was a child of Mr Pratt,” it stated.

Ms Hitchcock’s further statement said she believed excluding her from the trust would lead to the financial benefit of the three other Pratt siblings, but be to her financial detriment.

The Pratts’ have denied Ms Hitchcock’s claim and said in their defence reply document: “(The trust) does not admit the plaintiff (Ms Hitchcock) is a specified beneficiary.”