richard pratt dead, page-44

Good article in SMH today. Fraud estimated at $1,500,000,000, $75 for very Australian, man, woman and child. Perhaps his heirs can do the right thing and hand it back. I doubt it.

Article follows

Melbourne saint - and grave sinner
Ian Verrender
April 30, 2009
It is a fascinating thing, watching history being revised before your very eyes.

And so it is with Richard Pratt, who died on Tuesday after a long battle with cancer.

A larger than life character, Pratt was charismatic, immensely likeable, brimming with enthusiasm and possessed an intellect and energy with which few could keep pace.

Like many self-made men, however, he possessed a dark side. Pratt's was darker than most and manifested itself in his ruthless pursuit of wealth and power; a pursuit that placed him at the centre of some of Australia's biggest corporate scandals in the past three decades.

The campaign to rehabilitate his tarnished image, after criminal charges against him were dropped this week, is in full swing.

Backed by the might of the Melbourne establishment, a two-pronged strategy has been adopted. The first involves constant references to Pratt's philanthropic activities, along with a blackout on the unsavoury aspects of his business history.

There is no doubt Pratt's huge donations and his charitable works helped a great many people.

But was it enough to compensate for the pain and misery caused by his involvement in some of this country's most shameful corporate episodes? Clearly not.

Pratt profited at the expense "of every man, woman and child in Australia", the Federal Court's Justice Peter Heerey declared in a damning assessment of the billionaire's actions when he creamed an estimated $1.5 billion from illegal price-fixing over five years.

Does handing back a portion of that in a tax-deductible manner provide absolution? It doesn't even come close.

The second prong is aimed squarely at Graeme Samuel, the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and the man who became Pratt's nemesis in the last years of his life.

The knives are out for Samuel and the message is clear; Samuel and the ACCC are guilty. But guilty of what? Of doing the job entrusted to them by the public, and by refusing to cower in the face of threats by the rich and powerful?

Let's put the cards on the table here. Richard Pratt helped mastermind the biggest price-fixing racket this country has seen. He personally colluded with arch-rival Amcor to artificially hike prices and carve up the business between them.

In the US and in most of Europe, that alone would have put him behind bars for years. Unlike Australia, which has yet to enact proposed legislation, most countries regard cartel activity as a criminal offence. The Americans rightly argue that it eats away at the very core of capitalism and they enforce it with a zeal and ruthless-

ness that makes the ACCC's pursuit of Pratt look tame.

Pratt denied any involvement when questioned in 2005. Two years later, when it was obvious the evidence against him was overwhelming, he changed his tune, admitted his role and settled the matter with a $36 million fine, the biggest in Australian history.

Yesterday morning Pratt's supporters - emboldened by a court ruling that his conflicting statements could not be used as evidence in a criminal trial for lying to the ACCC - called for Pratt's Order of Australia to be returned, claiming he had been "exonerated".

This wasn't his first brush with controversy.

In 1990 a two-bit conman bought two Pratt-controlled insurance companies, Occidental and Regal, using $63 million of policyholder's own funds. That money helped stave off a financial crisis for Pratt but sent the insurance companies under. Pratt later repaid $10 million and was cleared of any wrongdoing.

He was also linked to the infamous 1988 "H fee" scandal, a $66 million payment from John Elliott's Elders to a Kiwi company, Equiticorp, of which Pratt was a director. Equiticorp's chief executive Allan Hawkins was jailed in New Zealand for accepting the money - allegedly paid for his part in the defence of BHP against Robert Holmes a Court. Elliott was later acquitted after the judge threw out the evidence.

Pratt died wealthy and powerful. But he was far from the innocent victim portrayed by those now engaged in the remake of his image.

http://business.smh.com.au/business/melbourne-saint--and-grave-sinner-20090429-anec.html