Gambling
Related Essays and Reports by Andrew W Scott
Clear
and Present Danger for Tabcorp's NSW Casino Licence?
July
10th 2007
The decision yesterday in the NSW Supreme Court by
Justice Hoeben to allow documents from the long-running
saga of Alexander Preston v Star City Pty Ltd to be
handed to the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner
(OLSC) and The Casino Control Authority (CCA) suggests
that a massive time bomb may be ticking away with
the potential to destroy Tabcorp’s chances of winning
the new exclusive casino license they are fervently
trying to negotiate with the NSW Government.
Tabcorp
owns Star City, whose precious 12 year exclusive casino
license ends in September. The CCA is charged with
regulating the NSW Casino Industry (current members
= 1), and the OLSC receives complaints about the conduct
of solicitors and barristers in NSW. If the casino
operator was involved in serious misconduct or illegal
activity, the CCA would be the logical body to be
informed. If a member of the legal fraternity was
involved in serious misconduct or illegal activity,
the OLSC would be the logical body to be informed.
Preston’s
case, now in its tenth year in the courts, is complex
but essentially alleges that the full gamut of underworld
activities were both condoned and undertaken by the
exclusive NSW Casino operator Star City. These activities
include prostitution, drug dealing, gaming by staff,
corruption, inducements, money laundering and much,
much more. Representatives for Preston approached
the Court yesteday, seeking to release certain documents
to the OLSC, the CCA and Journalists on the basis
of non compliance by Star City in the discovery process.
Whilst
the Court allowed release to the OLSC and CCA, it
refused release to the media. Could the interest of
the OLSC and CCA allude to the possibility that Preston
has evidence that documents sought under discovery
were deliberately destroyed by Star City, when they
were fully aware that Preston had commenced legal
action against them? This kind of situation was last
visited during the infamous McCabe vs British American
Tobacco case which involved BAT destroying documents
in anticipation of litigation, under their euphemistically
entitled "Document Retention Policy". Being
in the lowly media, we weren’t granted access to any
documents, so we can only hope that the NSW Government,
via the OLSC and CCA and now put on notice by Crikey.com.au,
will be suitably cognisant that something may well
be brewing.
There
should be no rash decision to grant Tabcorp a new
license, just in case any undue findings were to arise
against Tabcorp in the Preston case. But if they must
do a new deal "for the sake of the NSW economy",
they could always do the right thing by the punters
by retaining the option to revoke any deal if it emerges
that Tabcorp has engaged in serious and/or illegal
misconduct.
©
2007 Andrew W Scott
andrew@andrewscott.com
The
opinions expressed in this and other articles reprinted
in this section are those of the writer and do not
necessarily reflect the views of management.
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