Crown inquiry LIVE updates: James Packer to learn fate of Crown’s Barangaroo casino licence
Summary
- The NSW government will today release a long-awaited report into the future of Sydney’s second casino licence following an 18-month royal commission-style inquiry headed by former Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin.
- The Barangaroo gaming licence was granted in 2014 and is held by Crown Sydney Gaming, a subsidiary of Crown Resorts Limited. The controlling shareholder of Crown Resorts is billionaire James Packer.
- Commissioner Bergin inquired into whether Crown Sydney was a “suitable person” to hold the licence and whether Crown Resorts was a suitable person to be a “close associate”.
- Commisssioner Bergin’s terms of reference explicitly referred to reports by Nine, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age which raised allegations that Crown Resorts, its agents, affiliates or subsidiaries “engaged in money-laundering; breached gambling laws; and partnered with junket operators with links to drug traffickers, money launderers, human traffickers, and organised crime groups”.
- Commissioner Bergin may recommend that Crown should lose the licence, but a range of other options may be available including the imposition of strict conditions.
Latest posts
Casino report tabled in Parliament
By Michaela Whitbourn
Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello, who is responsible for regulating gambling in the state, has just tabled the Bergin report in State Parliament. We will be able to reveal the findings shortly.
‘More to say’ shortly: Dominello
By Michaela Whitbourn
Ahead of the release of the Bergin report today into the fate of Crown Resorts’ Barangaroo casino licence, NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello, who is responsible for gaming regulation, had this to say.
“At the heart of the report is the relationship between organised crime, money laundering and gambling, and more importantly what steps we can do to protect the community against some of these sinister elements,” he said.
“I’ll have more to say after I’ve tabled the report but that’s all I’ll stay about the Crown report [now].”
Mr Dominello foreshadowed that the report would be tabled in NSW Parliament after Question Time in the legislative assembly, which kicks off at 2.15pm.
The future of Packer’s grand plan
By Michaela Whitbourn
What will happen after the NSW government releases former Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin’s long-awaited report on Crown’s Barangaroo casino licence?
The answer may not be clear for a while. The NSW gambling regulator, the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA), will meet this month to consider her report. It can choose whether to accept and implement her recommendations.
Depending on the report’s findings and recommendations, and ILGA’s response, Crown could lose the casino licence completely, or have strict conditions imposed. This has flow-on effects for the viability of the $2.2 billion hotel and casino project, which is underpinned by the casino operation.
Changes to Crown’s management and board could be required, and controlling shareholder James Packer may have to sell down some of his 36 per cent holding in Crown Resorts to lessen what counsel assisting the inquiry has called his “deleterious impact on the governance” of the company.
The chairman of ILGA, Philip Crawford, said in November he was “not comfortable” with Crown opening gaming operations at Barangaroo, slated for December, until the Bergin inquiry was completed.
Crown Resorts opened its “six-star” Barangaroo hotel, restaurants and bars at the end of December, without gaming operations and with little fanfare.
What is this inquiry about?
By Michaela Whitbourn
In August 2019, the NSW gambling regulator, the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA), established a royal commission-style inquiry into whether Crown Sydney Gaming Pty Limited, a subsidiary of Crown Resorts Limited, remained a “suitable person” to hold the Barangaroo casino licence granted in July 2014.
Billionaire James Packer’s private company Consolidated Press Holdings holds a controlling stake in Crown Resorts, with a 36 per cent shareholding.
Crown was set to open the gaming floors of its $2.2 billion resort at Barangaroo in late December. In November, ILGA blocked it from commencing gaming operations, after the group admitted to the inquiry that criminals probably laundered money at its Melbourne and Perth casinos.
The terms of reference for the Bergin inquiry were amended during the course of the inquiry.
The terms of reference referred explicitly to reports by the Nine Network, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – all of which are owned by Nine Entertainment Co – from July 27, 2019, and said they had “raised various allegations into the conduct of Crown Resorts and its alleged associates and business partners and raised questions as to whether the Licensee remains a suitable person to hold a restricted gaming [licence]“.
The terms of reference said the allegations included “but are not limited to, allegations that Crown Resorts or its agents, affiliates or subsidiaries: (a) engaged in money-laundering; (b) breached gambling laws; and (c) partnered with junket operators with links to drug traffickers, money launderers, human traffickers, and organised crime groups”.
Among other things, Commissioner Bergin was tasked with inquiring into and reporting on whether Crown Sydney Gaming was a “suitable person” to continue to hold the Barangaroo casino licence, and whether Crown Resorts, its parent company, was a “suitable person” to be a close associate of the licensee.
If the answer to either of those questions was no, Commissioner Bergin was to consider what, if any, changes would be required to make them suitable.
Welcome
By Michaela Whitbourn
Hello and welcome to our live blog of the findings of the long-running NSW inquiry into Crown Resorts’ casino licence at Barangaroo.
I’m Michaela Whitbourn and I will be reporting on the major findings of former Supreme Court judge Patricia Bergin’s lengthy report into Crown’s suitability to keep the gaming licence for its new $2.2 billion Barangaroo hotel and casino.
The report is being released by the NSW government today after an 18-month investigation, which included a break during the COVID-19 pandemic and a change to the inquiry’s terms of reference.
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Source: Thanks smh.com