Clive Palmer royalties to keep flowing, amid mixed legal outcomes involving Citic

The big royalties windfall that helped pay for Clive Palmer’s election tilt is set in stone, taking sting out of an earlier court loss.

Royalties from Citic helped bankroll Clive Palmer’s big-spending election campaign.

The huge royalty windfall that helped bankroll Clive Palmer’s tilt at the 2019 federal election has been set in stone after the High Court dismissed an appeal by his estranged Chinese partner.

Mr Palmer has been collecting an estimated $400 million a year from China’s Citic since the Western Australian Supreme Court determined in 2018 the amount of royalties he was owed from Citic’s Sino Iron mine in WA’s Pilbara region.

A previous appeal by Citic was unsuccessful and the Chinese conglomerate had hoped to fight the matter in the High Court, but that final legal avenue has now been shut down.

It means Mr Palmer is set to reap substantial royalties from the mine for years to come.

“Justice has been achieved, not just for Mineralogy and Clive Palmer but for all Australians,” Mr Palmer said.

“The rule of law won over tyranny.”

The High Court result will take the sting out of the decision handed down in Western Australia’s Supreme Court on Thursday, in which Mr Palmer and his company Mineralogy were permanently barred from pursuing a separate $US200 million ($298m) claim against Citic.

Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Martin – who in 2018 awarded Mr Palmer and Mineralogy the landmark royalty win that revived his fortunes – ordered a permanent stay over the claim after finding he had engaged in an abuse of process.

Mr Palmer and Citic have been at loggerheads in the courts for years over the disastrous deal that saw the Chinese company purchase the Sino Iron project in Western Australia from Mr Palmer.

Citic has spent well over $12 billion purchasing and developing the project but has struggled to turn a profit from the mine, which has been plagued by cost overruns and delays.

While the 2018 judgment paved the way for Mr Palmer to collect hundreds of millions a year in royalties from the mine, the former MP had also been pursuing a separate claim over a $US200 million penalty over production milestones that Citic had missed.

But Justice Martin ruled that Mineralogy had engaged in an abuse of process in the matter, noting that the company had brought and then dropped similar actions several times.

“I assess that the actual cause of Mineralogy’s loss of the (minimum royalty payment) money claim cause of action under a permanent stay is not attributable in any way to the Citic defendants,” Justice Martin wrote.

“Rather, it is causatively attributable, solely and exclusively, to the abuse of process conduct by Mineralogy which itself has been occasioned at the behest of Mr Palmer.”

Mineralogy and Citic have also been ordered to cover Citic’s costs in the proceedings.

Justice Martin said an affidavit provided by Mr Palmer in the case did not provide “any legitimate rationalisation or a proper explanation” to justify what had occurred.

“Deliberate forensic decisions were obviously made by Mineralogy and then implemented on a tactical basis - in a fashion I evaluate must undoubtedly be vexing to the Citic defendants irrespective of their scale and resources,” he said.

“Recommencements followed by the serial discontinuances … on my assessment, constitute an abuse of the processes of the court and of its procedures by Mineralogy and Mr Palmer.”

A spokesman for Mr Palmer said he planned to appeal the decision.