Lawyers for Visy boss Richard Pratt have suggested that Graeme Samuel, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman, conducted a vendetta by pushing for Pratt to be criminally prosecuted.
On Tuesday, day seven of a pre-trial federal court hearing, Robert Richter QC demanded that prosecutors call Samuel to a pre-trial hearing at the Federal Court to explain why he wanted the Visy Industries chairman prosecuted.Pratt, 74, is charged with misleading the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) when he denied in a 2005 hearing a price-fixing agreement existed between Visy and its rival Amcor. The federal court has heard former high court justice Michael McHugh was told by Mr Pratt that he did not discuss a cartel arrangement with Amcor chief executive Russell Jones in 2001.
Richter asked why Samuel backed down from an agreement made last year with Pratt in which they agreed a statement of facts used in a civil prosecution could not be used in any other proceeding. He said, "Mr Samuel is the only one who can give an explanation of what now appears to be a personal vendetta. The application is that if my learned friends refuse to call Mr Samuel, we say your honour can call Mr Samuel. Could I foreshadow it will be our submission that this has been a shabby and deceitful case."
Prosecutor Mark Dean SC responded to Richter by saying the decision to prosecute Pratt came from members of the commission. He said, “It is not our job to serve up Mr Samuel to satisfy Mr Richter's lust and baseless conspiracy theories. There is no suggestion that supports the argument that after that point Mr Samuel actively drove the matter himself."
Justice Ryan said he would not be calling Samuel to give evidence.
