Crown Resorts’ biggest shareholder and former chair James Packer expresses regret to Perth royal commission

Reclusive billionaire James Packer has made a bombshell admission at the Perth royal commission into Crown Casino.

James Packer has conceded there were many “things that should have been done differently” at Crown Perth when he was at the helm — and he should have quit rather than missing board meetings for three years as criminal figures infiltrated its “VIP” customer base.

The probe is the third faced by Crown Resorts over now substantiated allegations of money laundering at the West Australian casino and also at its Melbourne venue.

The reclusive billionaire and major shareholder in the gambling giant fronted the WA probe via videolink on Friday, admitting he did not attend a single board meeting of Crown Perth’s Burswood Ltd between 2013 to 2016 after he moved overseas - the final three years of his chairmanship, which began in 2004.

Counsel assisting Patricia Cahill suggested that if he had been “more active and engaged”, Burswood Ltd may have been more aware of the risk of money laundering through its Riverbank Investments account, which was closed by ANZ in 2014 over such concerns.

Mr Packer said he “should have attended or resigned”, and an account closure “absolutely would have been a red flag” but claimed he was “not informed” of the risk of criminal infiltration through high roller junket tours until after 19 Crown staff were arrested in China in 2016 for marketing the business on the mainland, where gambling is illegal.

“You weren’t keeping an eye on things, Mr Packer,” Ms Cahill said, which he rejected.

“I should have resigned or attended, I accept that,” he added.

Mr Packer revealed at the NSW inquiry he suffered bipolar disorder and the medication impaired his memory.

He agreed he left it to management to ensure risks such as money laundering were mitigated and assumed they were doing enough.

“I had full confidence in the CEO Barry Felstead,” Mr Packer said.

Mr Packer said “at some point the culture slipped”, responding “potentially” after Ms Cahill asked whether that was due to his absence.

The royal commission has been seeking to establish to what extent those who ran the Perth venue functioned independently or at the behest of the parent company in a bid to find out who was most responsible for allowing the money laundering scandal to unfold.

Mr Packer paused lengthily and carefully considered Ms Cahill’s questions about those 12 years as Crown Perth’s chair before responding.

He often said he did not recall certain details and that he was “not a lawyer”, and asked Ms Cahill to repeat questions.

Earlier, Mr Packer’s barrister Noel Huntley objected twice when Ms Cahill pressed his client on how the corporate structure operated, describing her line of questioning as “argumentative”.

“I may well have known these things in 2006. I can’t remember now,” the businessman had responded.

He admitted he could not recall which specific subsidiary held the Crown Perth gaming licence.

Asked if that mattered to him, he replied: “What mattered to me was that the company was operating and behaving well, and that if that wasn’t happening that information should flow to the board ASAP.”

Mr Packer disagreed with testimony by former Crown Resorts director and his board nominee John Poynton that the overwhelming power rested with the parent company.

He said Burswood Ltd only did not have the authority to sign off on capital expenditure and redevelopment decisions, with Crown Resorts holding the purse strings.

If Crown Perth didn’t want someone appointed, it would not happen, Mr Packer said.

John Poynton reluctantly resigned as a nominee of Mr Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings in March, saying said he was “placed under significant pressure” to quit by former chair Helen Coonan and the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority as part of a board purge.

He said that in hindsight, Crown Perth should have had more independent directors and agreed with Ms Cahill’s proposition that it was “overseeing itself”, which was a poor governance structure.

Asked if there was anyone on the board with anti-money laundering expertise, he replied: “I don’t believe there was.”

“Looking back, there were many oversights, things that should have been done differently.

“I did not believe at that point in time that Crown Perth were engaged in money laundering.”

Mr Packer agreed with the general proposition that he would have known all casinos were at risk of being used for the criminal practice.

Asked how he saw his role as Burswood Ltd chair, Mr Packer said it was to ensure Crown Perth “put its best foot forward” and was seen “as a good corporate citizen”.

But he rejected as “completely wrong” Ms Cahill’s assertion he was “disengaged” from all aspects of Crown Perth other than its financial performance.

“I was financially and emotionally committed to Perth ... Perth was very important to me.”

It emerged last month James Packer was selling the luxury yacht from which he fronted last year’s damning NSW inquiry via videolink. Picture: Burgess

It is the second time Mr Packer has testified since the scandal exploded, having fronted last year’s damning NSW inquiry via videolink from his private yacht.

He sat in a modestly furnished room on Friday from an undisclosed location, only revealing he was in a time zone 11 hours behind Perth.

It comes after the damning Victorian royal commission findings recommended slashing his private investment vehicle Consolidated Press Holdings’ stake in Crown from 37 per cent to less than 5 per cent.

The NSW inquiry had labelled Mr Packer’s influence “disastrous”, as he was the driving force to secure more junkets.

Victorian Commissioner Raymond Finkelstein agreed.

The NSW inquiry was told that after Mr Packer quit Crown, he received special treatment, with briefings on an almost daily basis under a “controlling shareholder protocol”, which was torn up after the evidence emerged.

Burswood chair Bruce Carter says Crown is going through an extensive remediation program.

Burswood’s current chair Bruce Carter, who sits on several other boards, told the royal commission Crown was going through one of the most extensive remediation programs he had come across, describing the plan as “very large”.

“Probably the biggest challenge of this remediation plan is how much change there is and when you have an organisation that has significant change, getting all the moving parts to work is something you’ve got to watch carefully,” he said.

“So far at Crown, it seems to be going well.”

Mr Carter said it was important for the board to lead.

He said Crown also needed to put resources behind it and the company had the financial capacity to do that, which was not always the case.

Bruce Carter was appointed to the Crown Resorts board in August.

Mr Carter was also grilled about his lengthy list of other commitments and was asked how much of his regular week or month was available to devote purely to being a non-executive director of Crown.

“I have as much time as it requires. I have a busy professional life, which I enjoy. I’m 63, my children are grown ... this is what I do for a living,” he said.

“The requirements out of Crown have been quite extraordinary in terms of time — much larger than what I expected.

“Often, the board is meeting three times a week, four times a week in between calls, and that’s at a level I’ve maintained.

“Once the remediation program becomes implemented, one would hope that that regularises.”

Mr Carter noted while there were once 12 Burswood directors, there were now only three.

He said he did not expect there to be 12 again, but certainly expected more people to take on responsibilities in time.

Mr Carter said since he joined Crown in August, he had only missed one board meeting out of 30, which was due to a conflict.

Mr Carter said he did have some concerns about the scope and adequacy of the remediation plan.

“Yes — the size of it, but the pace at which it‘s happening at the moment is going very well,” he said.

“But again, it’s a dynamic document, it’s going to have to be adjusted for what came out of the royal commission last week, it will be adjusted for the findings of this commission ... it’ll just be continually updated for what life presents to Crown.”

Originally published as Crown Resorts’ biggest shareholder and former chair James Packer expresses regret to Perth royal commission