Crown pleads to open casino and run ‘working test’ to fix problems

“Many of the matters that the authority may wish to be satisfied about are going to be matters that require a ‘working test’,” Mr Young said during his final submissions.

“Some of them are best addressed in the context of the way in which the casino operates, by way of close oversight [and] review of those operations.”

Mr Young said that could include ILGA stationing inspectors on its gaming floors or Crown issuing daily reports to the regulator, which would be followed by in-depth audits and reviews.

ILGA chairman Philip Crawford said on Wednesday the authority would not allow Crown to open the casino until the Bergin inquiry delivers its report, which is due by February.

Under the inquiry’s terms of reference, if Commissioner Bergin finds Crown an unsuitable licence holder she must also report on what – if anything – Crown can do to become suitable.

Mr Young rejected submissions from counsel assisting that Crown should address the “deleterious” influence of its major shareholder James Packer over corporate governance by restricting his board representation and voting power.

Crown’s relationship with Mr Packer, who owns 36 per cent of the company, and his private company Consolidated Press Holdings was now “stock-standard”, Mr Young said, after they tore up agreements allowing the sharing of confidential information and the provision of services to Crown by CPH executives.

Meanwhile on Thursday it was revealed that Crown’s outgoing Australian Resorts chief executive Barry Felstead hired his own legal team to argue against a finding that he failed “without justifiable reason” to alert Crown’s board about China’s crackdown on foreign casinos before 19 employees were arrested there in 2016.

Mr Felstead’s lawyer Joanne Shepard said her client – who is being made redundant after a disastrous appearance at the inquiry earlier this year, and who Mr Packer’s legal team partly blamed for the arrests – was not trying to avoid responsibility for his mistakes, but said they were made in “good faith”.

“The matters now put against Mr Felstead were in fact escalated to board members either by Mr Felstead or by others,” she said.

That included Mr Felstead telling Crown director and CPH executive Michael Johnston about the government crackdown and that police detained and questioned a Crown employee in mid-2015.

Mr Felstead is the second Crown insider, following former director Ben Brazil, to hire their own legal teams in an effort to avoid the inquiry making adverse findings against them.

The year-long inquiry, which was sparked by a series of reports by this masthead last, will conclude its public hearings on Friday with final submissions from counsel assisting.