Richard Pratt, who built the vast packaging empire Visy Industries has died at 74 after succumbing to prostate cancer. His death came a day after the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) announced it would not pursue criminal charges against him for allegedly giving false and misleading evidence to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
In June last year, the ACCC began criminal proceedings in the Federal Court in Melbourne against Pratt for allegedly providing false or misleading evidence in the course of an investigation. The examinations were convened as part of the ACCC's investigation into alleged price fixing with rival packaging giant Amcor.In the Federal Court the CDPP withdrew all charges against Pratt on the grounds of his advance terminal cancer.
Following the ruling by the CDPP, Leon Zwier, lawyer for Pratt told media the former president of the Carlton Football Club took great comfort from learning the criminal case against him had been dropped.
Zwier told ABC Radio, “His family conveyed to him the outcome of the court case and it gave him comfort. He maintained from the beginning that he is innocent and is presumed to be innocent and that's all that matters.”
Pratt was born in Poland in 1934 and with his parents Leon and Paula, moved to Australia in 1938. Leon Pratt established Visy Board in 1948, which his son Richard eventually built into one of the largest privately owned packaging, paper and recycling companies in the world, operating more than a hundred manufacturing facilities in Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam. Together with Pratt USA, the company employs over 8,500 people with annual sales of around $5bn.
Visy says he will also be remembered as an Australian philanthropist, who together with The Pratt Foundation, established in 1978, Pratt and his family have distributed well over $200m to a wide range of charities and causes in Australia, Israel and the US.
He leaves his wife Jeanne, son Anthony who is expected to take the helm of the packaging empire, and daughters Heloise, Fiona and Paula.
