Australian billionaire James Packer paid $1.25 million to Netanyahu's law firm

Australian billionaire James Packer made monthly payments totaling $1.25 million (A$1.8 million) to the law firm that represents Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trial, a case in which Packer's own gifts to the Netanyahu family form part of the charges.

Packer, the former controlling shareholder of casino operator Crown Resorts, says the payments were for work unrelated to Netanyahu's corruption case.

The payments drew a call for an inquiry from Transparency International Australia, the local chapter of the global anti-corruption group. "These new allegations must be thoroughly investigated by authorities," Clancy Moore, its chief executive, said in a statement on Monday. The group said Israeli authorities have already ruled that Netanyahu cannot use money from foreign benefactors to pay for his legal defense.

Gifts at the center of Case 1000

Netanyahu, 77, has been on trial since 2020 on charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery across three cases. He denies any wrongdoing and calls the case a witch hunt.

In the gifts affair, known as Case 1000, prosecutors allege that he and his wife Sara received cigars and champagne worth about $195,000 over several years from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and from Packer, along with jewelry for Sara. Prosecutors say Netanyahu acted in Milchan's business interests in return. Packer has not been charged. Israeli police questioned him as a witness, and his company said at the time that he was "interviewed as a witness, not a suspect."

Packer has previously told investigators that he gave the gifts willingly and that some were given at the Netanyahus' request.

Israeli rules on who can pay Netanyahu's legal bills have been fought over for years. In 2019, the state committee that approves gifts to public officials ordered him to return about $300,000 he received from his cousin, the late American businessman Nathan Milikowsky, for his defense, and rejected a request to fund his lawyers with $2 million from Milikowsky and another American supporter. The committee said Netanyahu had to show he had exhausted his own money first.

The trial is in its final stages. Netanyahu finished giving evidence in June after 98 hearings, and a verdict is still pending. In November 2025, he asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon.

Packer's fortune

Packer, 59, is the son of the late media tycoon Kerry Packer, who ran Consolidated Press Holdings and the Nine television network in Australia. James Packer turned the family business toward casinos and controlled Crown Resorts until 2022, when he sold his remaining 37% stake to Blackstone as part of the private equity firm's takeover of the company.

He is now worth an estimated $3.55 billion, which makes him the 22nd-richest person in Australia. He once bought a house in Caesarea, the Israeli coastal town where the Netanyahu family has its private residence.