Fruits of Labor lacking

Spare a thought for more than 2 million small business operators who will never be offered a gift as enticing as the “multi-bagger” now featuring in quasi-judicial hearings in Sydney. Also save some sympathy for those gullible enough vote Labor in NSW.

• Updated Dec 24, 2012
• Brian Toohey

Fruits of Labor lacking

Spare a thought for more than 2 million small business operators who will never be offered a gift as enticing as the “multi-bagger” now featuring in quasi-judicial hearings in Sydney. Also save some sympathy for those gullible enough vote Labor in NSW.

• Updated Dec 22, 2012
• Brian Toohey

• Coal

Out of the deep-fryer and into ICAC

From mining companies to mobile phones and spray-on fat technology, Richard Poole has always been more entrepreneur than lawyer or investment banker, even though the latter is how he presents himself through boutique advisory firm ArthurPhillip.

• Updated Dec 15, 2012
• Anne Hyland

Kinghorn not amused by questioning

John Kinghorn was mad as hell and he wasn’t going to take it any more—he had stood for this line of questioning quite long enough.

• Updated Dec 13, 2012
• Neil Chenoweth

• Coal

Cascade’s mysterious waters

Old sailors and English Lit majors will recognise the mysterious waters in which ICAC Commissioner David Ipp, QC, is sailing. Three weeks ago, counsel assisting ICAC, Geoff Watson SC, was all Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, chasing the great white whale of NSW corruption. Since then, Watson’s quarry Cascade Coal has become the Flying Dutchman.

• Updated Dec 12, 2012
• Neil Chenoweth

• Coal

White Energy investors shared lack of curiosity

It’s an investigation that has everything – cabinet ministers, backroom political fixers, some of the biggest mining identities in the country, sensational corruption allegations. And now ... doughnuts.

• Updated Dec 11, 2012
• Neil Chenoweth

• Coal

Market kept in dark on why White Energy deal fell apart

White Energy chief executive Brian Flannery has admitted he withheld information from the Australian Securities Exchange about the company’s decision to abandon a $500 million bid for a mining company at the centre of a corruption inquiry.

• Updated Dec 11, 2012
• Jamie Freed | Michaela Whitbourn

Businessmen scripted answers on links to Obeids

The Sydney businessmen embroiled in an inquiry into an allegedly corrupt coal deal have been scripting answers to questions about their links to the family of former NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid for almost two years, documents tendered at the inquiry reveal.

• Updated Dec 10, 2012
• Michaela Whitbourn

• Market Wrap

Payment to Obeids hidden, ICAC tape reveals

White Energychairman Travers Duncan and his business associates concealed from the Australian Stock Exchange a multimillion-dollar payment, which eventually went to the family of former NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid, a corruption inquiry has heard.

• Updated Dec 9, 2012
• Michaela Whitbourn

Unravelling started on Cascade’s books

A query from a single private investor with a small shareholding in White Energy may have brought down the proposed $500 million takeover of Cascade Coal.

• Updated Dec 8, 2012
• Jamie Freed

Corruption tape reveals coal director’s lie

Coal magnate Travers Duncan has been accused of lying about his dealings with disgraced former NSW Labor mineral minister Ian Macdonald after a secretly taped phone call was played at a corruption inquiry.

• Updated Dec 7, 2012
• Michaela Whitbourn | Jamie Freed

Travers Duncan’s overlapping coal interests

For Travers Duncan, the $500 million bid for Cascade Coal in November 2010 wasn’t the first related party deal he had overseen as White Energy chairman.

• Updated Dec 7, 2012
• Jamie Freed

Property magnate had Cascade interest

Sydney property magnate Denis O’Neil has emerged as one of a group of wealthy investors in Cascade Coal, the company at the centre of a NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry.

• Updated Dec 4, 2012
• Jamie Freed

• Coal

Reputations at stake in Cascade inquiry

After a long run for Nathan Tinkler, the extraordinary revelations from the NSW Independent Committee Against Corruption inquiry are vying for position as the top subject of gossip in the coal industry.

• Updated Nov 30, 2012
• Jamie Freed

• Coal

All in with the Obeids

It seemed the perfect opportunity to catch a piece of the action in the billionaire-creating coal boom. Instead investors find themselves caught up in an far-reaching corruption inquiry into a powerful political family.

• Updated Nov 25, 2012
• Anne Hyland | Jamie Freed