Crown executive Peter Lawrence warned over evidence at royal commission
The reputation of yet another Crown Resorts executive was tarnished on Tuesday as the James Packer-backed casino group continued to ride the rollercoaster of royal commission hearings.
Under questioning from Geoffrey Kozminsky as counsel assisting Ray Finkelstein’s Victorian inquiry into the $8.5bn gaming group, Crown’s longstanding high-roller executive, Peter Lawrence, revealed damning insights into how things had run in Crown’s exclusive Mahogany Room at the group’s Southbank complex.
Evidence to the commission by casino veteran Lawrence, Crown’s general manager of VIP customer service, on how things worked in the exclusive gaming room was repeatedly probed by Kozminsky.
In the end, the former Arnold Bloch Leibler lawyer warned his witness that counsel assisting would recommend to commissioner Finkelstein that Lawrence’s evidence on Crown’s operations not be accepted. He joins a growing, high-profile list of Crown executives and directors whose careers have taken heavy blows under questioning from counsel to the NSW and Victorian commissions, including Packer, former AFL boss Andrew Demetriou and now former Crown execs Ken Barton, Robert Rankin, Joshua Preston and Barry Felstead.
Lawrence, who has worked for Crown since 2012 and before that for four years after the casino first opened in 1994, said he couldn’t disagree with other evidence from Mahogany Room operators provided to the commission which Kozminsky said was “fairly damning” of Crown.
This included details of staff contacting clients to entice them to the casino, with carrots such as concert tickets and gifts that needed to be collected in person and free meals at casino restaurants – all designed to get high-rollers through the door to gamble.
Lawrence admitted Crown allowed people to gamble even when they owed Crown money, with Kozminsky also establishing that Crown’s more senior table games exec Tim Bennett and COO Xavier Walsh were aware this was occurring.
Walsh is an “approved associate” of the casino licence holder.
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Costly court
After her years of lapping up a life of luxury, Human Group director Helen Rosamond is now more acutely aware that indeed nothing comes for free.
Especially when it comes to legal representation.
Rosamond is charged with 73 counts of deceptive conduct and knowingly issuing false statements (among others). Rosamond has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Appearing before judge Clive Jefferies in the District Court on Tuesday, Rosamond’s barrister Greg James QC argued she simply did not have the funds to build a solid defence and contend with detailed forensic accounting reports unless she had sufficient support.
After her assets were frozen, he argued, Rosamond was now reliant on legal aid and a trial set to go on for at least several months would not come cheap.
To date, no senior counsel has accepted the lower legal aid rates for their advice on the matter, for which the Crown’s representation has prepared a brief of 60 volumes and more than 260,000 pages – not even her current representative James would agree to it.
That hefty reading alone would be enough to put many off.
Recall, this is the same woman who is alleged to have profited $5.5m in kickbacks from the then-Andrew Thorburn-led NAB through a years-long inflated invoice scheme.
With the trial now held over to early 2022, even the thought of some kind of resolution for Rosamond won’t begin until her alleged co-conspirator Rosemary Rogers has already served more than 12 months of her eight-year sentence.
The alleged two former “besties” will have their day in court, however, with lawyers for the Crown acknowledging that Rogers would be called to give evidence whenever the trial eventually came to pass.
No word yet on whether any current or former executives from NAB will be called to give evidence too.
And while Rosamond’s assets remain on ice, her ex-husband and, for a time, business partner at the Human Group, Geoff Rosamond, is making a few bucks from the Crows Nest apartment the couple once shared.
Margin Call has spied a holiday rental listing for $348 a night to stay in the two-storey penthouse – the former Rosamond residence that was transferred solely to the husband’s name in early 2018.
Not quite Human Group luxury standard but it’s a start.
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Henderson rebounds
She’s no longer the member for Corangamite but Sarah Henderson has her heart firmly lodged in Victoria’s west.
The now senator for the good people of the locked-down southern state looks to be on the march to build a property empire of some substance, in recent weeks adding an almost $1m beach shack in Point Lonsdale to her portfolio of assets.
Braving the post-Covid property bubble, the hardworking Liberal forked out $985,000 for the two-bedroom fibro home just a short walk from the popular beach, where fellow Liberal Katie Allen, the Member for Higgins, also has a holiday home.
The buy has come with the assistance of a mortgage from the Peter King-led Westpac and is in addition to Hendo’s home base in nearby Barwon Heads.
The Point Lonsdale buy is the second real estate investment from the pollie in recent months. Towards the end of last year Henderson also forked out for an apartment in Canberra for her use when in the nation’s capital.
What a difference less than a term of federal parliament can make, with the former ABC journo just a couple of years back having to turn to her friends in the billionaire Costa family of Geelong for a short-term loan after she was ousted in the 2019 election as the member for Corangamite (soon to be renamed Tucker and with its boundaries redrawn) by Labor first-timer Libby Coker.
After about five months with no job, Henderson eventually won a brutal battle against northeast Victorian farmer Greg Mirabella, husband of former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella, for the Victorian Senate seat.
An impressive comeback all around.
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Brick by brick
Buybacks are ramping up at Boral, even on the eve of the release of its target statement, which is likely to rebuff Kerry Stokes’ $8bn takeover bid.
As noted previously, every share the Kathryn Fagg-chaired Boral buys back effectively increases Stokes’ stake by shrinking the pot.
But that hasn’t stopped the buyback committee.
The latest update lodged to the ASX on Tuesday showed Boral had upped its total purchases to more than $300m, thanks to a $19.9m spend on roughly 2.9 million shares the day before.
That’s more than half of all shares traded on Monday.
It seems the group is as determined as ever to continue on with its pledged buyback, even if it is only nine weeks since it began.
That serves to benefit Stokes, whose holdings are creeping toward 24 per cent, and closer to another seat at the board. Boral chief Zlatko Tordorcevski and CFO Tino La Spina are set to hand down their verdict on the offer on Wednesday morning.
Watch this space.
The Cat’s luxury lair raided by corporate cop
The Byron Bay home of media entrepreneur Antony Catalano was paid a visit by ASIC on the hunt for a computer, as part of an alleged investigation of trading in asset manager Magellan.
The Price is right for Rinehart
Gina Rinehart praised the Coalition’s Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, urged the ADF to shift to Darwin and chastised unacclimatised city folk, in a recorded address to the Institute of Public Affairs.