Former media buyer says Asic has delayed giving him documents in court case relating to his time as director of Tennis Australia

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Crown Resorts director Harold Mitchell claims the corporate regulator has had to be “dragged kicking and screaming” to give his lawyers documents related to its efforts to disqualify him as a company director.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is pursuing Mitchell in the federal court over allegations that in late 2012 and early 2013, as a director of Tennis Australia, he helped the Seven Network get a cheap deal to broadcast the Australian Open.

Asic is also attempting to disqualify a former Tennis Australia president, Steve Healy, over the broadcast deal.

Mitchell, who made his fortune as a media buyer, is one of two Crown directors over whom probity concerns have been raised.

The Victorian commission for gambling and liquor regulation investigated the role of the former AFL chief executive, Andrew Demetriou, at the failed training group Acquire Learning last year as part of a regular review of Crown’s flagship Melbourne casino. The commission found Demetriou was not a director of Acquire.

Free TV's Harold Mitchell resigns, vowing to fight tennis broadcast rights case Read more

It has said it is monitoring Asic’s case against Mitchell, which he and Healy are contesting.

Asic filed its case against the two former Tennis Australia directors in November, but it is coming to a head amid a storm of allegations published by Nine and made under parliamentary privilege that include linking it to organised crime through junket operators, claiming its high-roller customers are not checked by officials at the border, and raising concerns about money laundering.

On Thursday morning, counsel for Mitchell, Matt Collins QC, complained to the court that his client’s solicitors had received three versions of lists of documents Asic said were relevant.

This included details of contacts between Asic and two former Tennis Australia directors, Graeme Holloway, who died in February, and former tennis player Kerryn Pratt, who resigned from the board in 2016 and has publicly raised concerns about the broadcast deal.

“They are two former board members of Tennis Australia who have had communications with Asic about which we knew nothing,” Collins said.

The lists provided by Asic were “materially different in ways that excited suspicion on our side of the bar table”.

“In circumstances where we have a trial date bearing down upon us we need everything and we need it as soon as it can be provided.”

Mitchell’s legal team received a flood of documents after the case was previously in court on 17 May, he said.

“We’ve received since the last occasion about 1,000 further documents, many of which are dross, to put it succinctly,” he said.

Counsel for Asic, Michael Pearce SC, said the documents Asic was using in the case “came in in dribs and drabs, in February, in March, in May”.

“We’ve waited until we have them all and then we’ve provided them to them,” he said. Most of them were “entirely uncontroversial”.

Justice Jonathan Beach said it seemed Asic was continuously updating its list of documents, suggesting there was “no grand conspiracy”.

“It is bureaucratic error,” he said.

He ordered Asic to swear an affidavit by 23 August certifying that it had produced all the relevant documents.

The case is set down for trial in November.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Beach said.

“So is Mr Mitchell,” Collins replied.



