Tennis boss Harold Mitchell ‘helped Seven win TV rights’

Former Tennis Australia director Harold Mitchell passed on secret details to the Seven Network, a court heard.

Harold Mitchell leaves the Federal Court in Melbourne. Picture: AAP

Former Tennis Australia director Harold Mitchell passed on secret information to the Seven Network about broadcast rights, ­attempting to strike a cheap deal by bypassing the sport’s ­administrators and threatening to have officials sacked if they defied him, the Federal Court has heard.

Mr Mitchell, once considered one of the most powerful figures in the media ­industry, is also ­accused of deliberately suppressing information regarding lucrative bids from Seven’s rivals and even ignoring an instruction from the sport’s then president to stop negotiating with Seven.

The allegations, some contained in details of meetings, emails and phone calls between Mr Mitchell and Seven West Media commercial director Bruce McWilliam, also include Mr Mitchell instructing Seven executives how to negotiate for the rights and to withhold vital information prior to meetings between the television bosses and the then Tennis Australia chief executive Steve Wood.

One email presented to court in Melbourne on Monday quoted Mr McWilliam saying to Mr Mitchell, “I know we are negotiating between ourselves,” during discussions in 2012 about extending Seven’s long-term contract to broadcast the Australian Open and other tournaments.

Mr Mitchell was also quoted as saying rival bids were “crap” and “garbage”.

When Mr Wood said he wanted to present details of bids by Seven’s rivals to the Tennis Australia board, Mr Mitchell is said have responded: “You’re not going to do it that way. This will cost you your job. When will you learn to be a good CEO?”

A Crown Resorts director, Mr Mitchell and ex-Tennis Australia president Steve Healy face bans from corporate life and heavy fines following accusations that they kept fellow Tennis Australia directors in the dark about potentially lucrative bids for broadcast rights before the sport extended its deal with Seven in 2013.

The allegations were heard on the first day of the Australian ­Securities & Investments Commission’s civil lawsuit against the pair in Melbourne, with Mr Mitchell accused of using his position as director of the sporting body to advantage Kerry Stokes’s Seven Network by passing on confidential information regarding competing bids.

Mr Mitchell has strenuously denied the allegations, but Michael Pearce SC, ­appearing for ASIC, detailed allegations of Mr Mitchell telling Mr McWilliam in an email to keep terms of their rights negotiations from Mr Wood in the days before a meeting in March 2013 because Mr Wood “talks to the people on his staff and gets pushed into a corner”. Mr Pearce said the exchange called into question “how this conduct could be a proper discharge of (Mr Mitchell’s) duties as a director of Tennis Australia”.

Mr Pearce also said former Tennis Australia directors Janet Young and Kerryn Pratt would give evidence that concerns were raised with Mr Healy about Mr Mitchell’s conduct and that “he asked Mr Mitchell to step out of negotiations with Seven but he refused to do so”. Seven eventually signed a deal worth about $35m a year but lost the rights to Nine in 2018, when Nine agreed to pay $300m over five years.