Clive Palmer claims ‘proof’ of offer to pay Queensland Nickel debts
Clive Palmer says an affidavit proves he and his nephew Clive Mensink offered to pay Queensland Nickel’s debts.
Clive Palmer says an affidavit submitted in a matter before the court proves he and his nephew Clive Mensink offered to pay Queensland Nickel’s debts and prevent it being dissolved, but were blocked by liquidators.
The former federal MP yesterday said his bid to pay the debts would form part of an “abuse of process” claim against liquidators to have the series of court cases against him thrown out.
Mr Palmer, who is representing himself, detailed his claim outside Brisbane’s Supreme Court where he appeared along with lawyers representing liquidators and his companies to work through legal issues and get the matter to trial.
The issues include a bid to freeze Mr Palmer’s assets and a counter claim lodged by the mining magnate against the liquidators for $1.8 billion.
A general-purpose liquidator and court-appointed special-purpose liquidator are trying to recoup millions of dollars owed to creditors of Queensland Nickel.
The refinery business, based in Townsville, collapsed in 2016 leaving debts of about $300 million.
In an unrelated matter, Mr Palmer was charged by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission this month for allegedly breaching takeover law by failing to make an offer for securities in a company within two months of a takeover bid in June 2012.
Outside court, Mr Palmer said the nickel refinery jobs would have been saved if he had been given permission to transfer Queensland Nickel’s business to a new entity.
He said an affidavit from an administrator — which he said was working with QN after its collapse — proved he had sought to assign all employee contracts to the new entity, resulting in a reduction of creditor claims.
But the administrators did not agree to this, despite a promise that their services would be covered, because Mr Mensink also sought to access the company’s cash. Mr Palmer yesterday said he instructed Mr Mensink not to let the company go into liquidation or for anyone to lose their job.
“This confirms that the administrator at the time, regardless of that, decided to sack 550 people and put it into liquidation,” Mr Palmer said. “You may wonder why someone would do that and that will be coming out in the next couple of weeks in court.”
Mr Palmer said the “whole matter was a witch-hunt against (him) for political purposes”.
Earlier, he told the court he would be overseas in May, meaning he would not be able to appear on an application he made to remove the taxpayer-funded special purpose liquidator until August.
Mr Palmer has also sought to prevent the liquidators having two sets of lawyers. on the basis it would cost creditors more money.
The trial, which could last for three months, is unlikely to be heard before mid-February.
However, it could be prevented from ever going ahead if Mr Palmer is successful in his application for a permanent stay of the proceedings, which he plans to lodge in June.