A commodities trader suing Sally Zou for $10m failed in a bid to make a further $15m claim

A federal court case lodged against Sally Zou over more than $10m in disputed commodities payments has resumed, with the identity of the Liberal Party donor’s mysterious uncle in play.

Chinese mining entrepreneur Sally Zou. Picture: Jo-Anna Robinson

A bid to increase a $10m-plus claim for damages against enigmatic Chinese mining magnate Sally Zou by a further $15m failed in Federal Court yesterday, as the identity of Ms Zou’s supposedly influential uncle remained shrouded in mystery.

During cross-examination on Monday, commodities trader Anthony Smyth attempted to amend his statement of claim to include a claim for a further $15m he argued he was owed, relating to Ms Zou’s $45m purchase of a gold mine in Australia. Mr Smyth told the court he was entitled to a third of any and all dealings entered into by Ms Zou. However, Justice John Halley refused to allow Mr Smyth to amend his statement of claim, saying it was unlikely the expansion “has any arguable prospects for success’’.

Under cross examination, Mr Smyth admitted that he had no electronic record of invoices submitted for payment to Ms Zou, telling the court he had experienced computer problems and had lost all of his emails.

Mr Smyth has previously told the court that he believed Ms Zou had the financial capacity to fulfil the contracts he says he set up – worth several hundred millions of dollars in all – because he was shown a document purporting to show Ms Zou’s company had $18.6bn in the bank, and because her uncle was rumoured to be very influential in China.

READ MORE:Who is Sally Zou?

Phillip Lonergan, acting for Ms Zou, put it to Mr Smyth that the document he was relying on was almost entirely written in Chinese, and that it was not in fact shown to him at a lunch in Sydney’s Chinatown.

“At the Kam Fook restaurant in Chinatown in February 2012 she did not show you a document from HSBC that showed that her company AGE had $US18.6bn sitting in a HSBC bank account in Hong Kong, did she?’’ Mr Lonergan said.

“I thought she did,’’ Mr Smyth answered. “You thought she did. Are you sure or not?”

“I’m not 100 per cent sure,’’ Mr Smyth said. “But yeah, I saw the figure of 18.6 billion yes, yes, actually yes.

“Sally Zou told me she was a billionaire, Sally Zou told me she had money in her account, Sally Zou showed me her banking documents and Sally Zou … showed me her past trades.

“I can’t speak Chinese. I can’t read Chinese very well. So I just took it on good faith.’’

Mr Smyth said he was told Ms Zou’s uncle was a senior figure at China’s Southern Cross Cement, Sinosteel, and another major company.

“From her own admission, he is the biggest in China and that’s why everyone's afraid of him,’’ Mr Smyth said.

Mr Lonergan responded “But you don’t even know his name … how much due diligence did you do on this uncle?’’

Mr Smyth said major mining company Glencore did due diligence on Ms Zou’s company and found nothing untoward.

“It went through their credit department and came out the other side? How were we, until Sally’s own admissions, which were made recently, supposed to know that it wasn’t true?” Mr Smyth said.

The case resumes on Tuesday.