Clive Palmer’s chances of escape from costly trial remote

IF Clive Palmer gets blunt legal advice for the millions of dollars he spends on lawyers he should be gravely concerned.

China’s state-owned company squarely accuses him of dishonesty and fraud. The allegations, accompanied by documents, are of such seriousness they will be examined by police fraud detectives unless he can make it all go away.

Palmer, who denies wrongdoing, had hoped the judgment in Queensland’s Supreme Court yesterday would provide his chance to get off a slow-moving train that looks on track for a bad crash. He needed the court to find the allegations against him were doomed to fail; that the case he faced was baseless and vexatious, an improper bid to embarrass him; and that he was the one being wronged as he had tried to return more than $12 million in Chinese funds, nine months after he took it.

Judge David Jackson’s finding that there was “nothing fictitious” about the evidence, or the causes of the legal action brought against Palmer, is a body blow to the leader of the Palmer United Party. The next stop is a trial in the Supreme Court, which will next month hear more about the evidence and the allegations that he “dishonestly procured” the $12m from a bank account set up to pay costs of running an iron ore port.

Evidence already in the court shows it was Palmer who took control of the bank account, then drained it into overdraft — withdrawing $12.167m with two big cheques shortly before the federal election last year. By his direction, the money went to the agency that booked the advertisements for PUP’s election campaign, contributing to the party securing the balance of power in the Senate; and to an account he set up for his private company, Cosmo Developments Pty Ltd.

China, which was told by Palmer’s company Mineralogy that the funds were spent on “port management services”, is not backing down. It asserts that the money was withdrawn and spent by Palmer with deliberate and calculated dishonesty.

This is no longer, if it ever was, a fight solely for commercial leverage. There is too much acrimony, and too much bad blood. It is being sanctioned by the highest levels in Beijing against a businessman who has so alienated his one-time backers — whom he has branded corrupt, and “mongrels” and “bastards” — that the chances of a sweetheart deal are remote.