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Defense in Pratt Case Claims Entrapment
August 16, 2008 Official Board MarketsThe defense for billionaire packager Richard Pratt made its case in Australian Federal Court. Pratt is charged with four counts of making false or misleading statements to investigators from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) over an illegal pricing cartel his company, Visy, was running with rival box maker, Amcor.
The defense claims competition watchdog Graeme Samuel engineered the filing of criminal charges against Pratt as part of a personal crusade to make cartel behavior a jailable offence.
ACCC’s original case against Visy, Pratt and two former Visy executives was settled last year with record fines of $36 million. As part of the settlement, Pratt signed a statement of facts in which he admitted knowing about the scam. The ACCC claims that is proof he was lying when he denied allegations to investigators in 2005.
But Counsel for Pratt says this shows that the ACCC deliberately worded the agreed statement of claim to entrap Pratt into contradicting his earlier statements, so he could be charged with lying to investigators. Each charge is punishable by up to a year in jail.
Defense attorney, Robert Richter told the court that the ACCC had begun referring evidence against Pratt to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions less than two weeks after the agreed statement of facts was signed and before the Federal Court had signed off on the settlement of the cartel case. He also accused the ACCC of contempt of court by using the agreed statement of facts as evidence outside the confines of the case for which it was prepared. The statement included provisions limiting the use of admissions contained in it for the purposes of settling the original court case.
ACCC counsel Mark Dean described the attack as “empty rhetoric” that had nothing to do with the issue before the court.
Justice Donnell Ryan adjourned the case until a later date when he will rule on a motion that subpoenas issued by Pratt against the ACCC, Samuel and other parties should be thrown out.
