Palmer nephew Clive Mensink shirking summons ‘contempt of court’

Clive Palmer’s nephew has show contempt for Federal Court by shirking a summons. a court hears.

Clive Mensink, the nephew of Clive Palmer, claims he is too depressed to cut his round-the-world trip short to come home and be publicly examined.

Clive Palmer’s nephew Clive Mensink has shown “absolute contempt” for the Federal Court by shirking a summons demanding he return home to Australia to testify about the collapse of Queensland Nickel, a court has heard.

Queensland Nickel’s special purpose liquidators PPB Advisory will apply for an arrest warrant for Mr Mensink, who claims he is too depressed to cut his round-the-world trip short to come home and be publicly examined.

Barrister David de Jersey, for PPB Advisory, said the liquidators wanted to immediately apply for a warrant to bring Mr Mensink home.

“Mr Mensink has shown absolute contempt in not appearing today,” Mr de Jersey told the Federal Court this morning.

He said his excuses were “unmeritorious entirely”. The Australian understands Mr Mensink has told liquidators and his lawyers that he is depressed and would be too stressed to return to Australia and face a public examination.

Mr de Jersey said it was in the “interests of justice” for the matter to be heard promptly.

Mr Mensink’s barrister Alex Nelson said Mr Mensink had a “reasonable excuse” and would want to swear another affidavit with a more detailed medical certificate before an application for a warrant was heard.

Mr de Jersey said Mr Mensink should have known for weeks that liquidators would apply for an arrest warrant if he did not show up at court.

“He’s overseas as we all know and doesn’t seem to have an intention to return to Australia until mid-this year,” Mr de Jersey said.

Federal Court Registrar Murray Belcher said he did not want to “diminish the seriousness of the position that Mr Mensink is in”, but he did flag the difficulty of executing a warrant overseas.

“Mr Mensink is overseas, if a warrant was issued, there’s some difficulty...in executing that,” Mr Belcher said.

Federal Court judge John Dowsett will hear PPB Advisory’s application for a warrant tomorrow morning.