Setback for Mineralogy in Citic Pacific battle

MINERALOGY has failed to avoid having a dispute with Citic Pacific heard by a judge who has previously described some of its legal tactics as “absurd”.

MINERALOGY has failed to avoid having its latest dispute with Citic Pacific heard by a judge who has previously described some of Clive Palmer’s company’s legal tactics as “absurd”.

Mineralogy argued in the West Australian Supreme Court yesterday that it wanted to have its dispute with Citic and the state’s Department of Environment Regulation heard separately from other disputes already set to be heard by judge James Edelman.

Judge John Chaney ruled that Justice Edelman would be in a better position to hear the case, given his understanding of the background of the broader disputes between Mineralogy and Chinese group Citic, which has an agreement to mine iron ore on some of Mineralogy’s ground in Western Australia’s Pilbara.

Mineralogy had argued for the latest dispute to be heard by Justice Chaney, who would have been able to hear the matter late next month. Justice Edelman can only hear the case in early August.

Last year, Justice Edelman described a hearing timetable proposed by Mineralogy as “absurd” and ordered it to pay $55,000 in legal costs to Citic after Mineralogy backflipped on its stance in a royalty dispute.

The lawyer representing Mineralogy, Rebecca Lee, told the court it was “simply not the case” that the company wanted to avoid Justice Edelman, arguing instead that a separate hearing under Justice Chaney would allow for a faster resolution of the dispute.

Justice Chaney said he did not see any urgency to the matter that would warrant it being heard separately from the other issues before Justice Edelman.

Mineralogy is arguing that it should have been consulted by the department when it was assessing Citic’s proposal for a port at Cape Preston as Mineralogy was technically the holder of the general licences at the time.

“Mineralogy was the holder of the general purpose leases,” Ms Lee said. “It should always have been consulted in relation to the matter.”

The lawyer representing the defendants, Kanaga Dharmananda SC, argued that Justice Edelman was familiar with the broader issues between Citic and Mineralogy and as a result could hear the matter more efficiently than judges without that background.

He argued that Mineralogy should not have been consulted by the department as the rights in question should have already been transferred to Citic at the time the department was considering the application.

“There should have been a transfer and that transfer should have occurred as a matter of contractual procedure,” Mr Dharmananda said. “To the extent there’s been a failure to transfer … Mineralogy is in effect taking advantage of a wrong.”

Citic has previously alleged that money it put into a fund for use in managing the Cape Preston port was wrongfully used by Mineralogy for a number of purposes, including funding legal disputes with Citic itself.