Clive Palmer parts company with top law firm

CLIVE Palmer has parted company with his legal team after several years in litigation that has been mostly unsuccessful.

Clive Palmer in the House of Representatives. Picture: Gary Ramage

CLIVE Palmer has parted company with his legal team after using the firm’s senior lawyers over several years in litigation that has been mostly unsuccessful.

Mr Palmer has given formal notice to the Supreme Court of Queensland that the leading Brisbane firm, HopgoodGanim, no longer acted for him over fraud and dishonesty claims levelled by a Chinese government-owned company over $12 million allegedly wrongfully siphoned off by the federal parliamentarian.

Sources close to the Palmer United Party leader said a solicitor who had been working as in-house counsel for his Townsville-based Queensland Nickel, Ross Kilmurray, would now handle most of the complex legal disputes. It is understood that Mr Kilmurray has left Queensland Nickel to start his own firm, which will work almost solely for Mr Palmer.

In the past two years, Mr Palmer has been involved in separate litigation in the Federal Court and the supreme courts of Queensland and Western Australia.

The cases include a defamation row with The Australian; a breach-of-contract case brought by one of the managers of his dinosaur park, Bill Schoch; and disputes with the Chinese company over the $12m, disputed royalties on a massive iron ore project, and control of the port for exporting iron ore.

HopgoodGanim has acted for Mr Palmer in legal matters that have not gone to court, including sending warning letters to a Brisbane man who founded a political party with a name similar to the one Mr Palmer selected.

The large firm’s legal work for Mr Palmer has generated several million dollars in fees over the past three years. But the relationship has at times been strained.

Mr Palmer’s flagship company, Mineralogy, is now promoting an “exciting opportunity” for an in-house legal counsel based in Perth. The job includes “actively participating in the litigation of contract­ual disputes” and liaising “with key government stakeholders”.