James Packer’s message for One.Tel liquidator – bring it on

Gaming mogul and former One.Tel director James Packer has challenged One.Tel special liquidator Paul Weston to make good on his threat to pursue Packer and other former One.Tel directors over the telco’s collapse, saying that his company “looks forward to demonstrating in court the true financial position of One.Tel”.

Weston is considering legal action against Packer and other directors including Lachlan Murdoch over an aborted rights issue in the last days before One.Tel’s collapse.

The $132 million rights issue was to be backed by Publishing & Broadcasting Limited and Packer’s private company Consolidated Press Holdings and News Corporation. But it was pulled at the last minute and instead the company was put into administration.

Packer and Murdoch claimed they had been “profoundly misled” about the true position of One.Tel’s finances.

But a NSW Supreme Court judge found on Wednesday that ASIC had failed to prove that One.Tel founder and chief executive Jodee Rich misled the board or the market, leading Weston to accelerate plans to take action against Packer, Murdoch and others.

Packer’s message is clear – bring it on.

In a statement, Packer urged Weston to lodge a writ in the NSW Supreme Court and start the case.

“CPH believes that the Supreme Court should immediately order that all the documents be preserved for the proceedings. CPH looks forward to arguing these cases and to demonstrating in court the true financial position of One.Tel.”

Packer also repeated that he had been “profoundly misled” over the state of One.Tel’s books and stressed that the dismissal of ASIC’s case against Rich did not prove that Rich’s version of events was right.

“In other words, Rich did not positively prove One.Tel’s financial position, but rather ASIC was not able to make out its case against Rich and Silbermann.”

The timing of any action to be taken by Weston is still unknown.