Clive Palmer to face Sino Iron’s $10m lawsuit over wrongful payments

CLIVE Palmer will face trial after losing a bid to have Sino Iron’s $10 million fraud lawsuit against him thrown out of court.

Disgruntled business partner Sino is suing Mr Palmer over the alleged dishonest payment of more than $10m in Chinese funds to Media Circus and Cosmo Developments.

CLIVE Palmer has lost his bid to have Chinese-owned Sino Iron’s $10m fraud lawsuit against him tossed out of court.

Queensland Supreme Court judge David Jackson this morning announced he was dismissing the Palmer United Party’s leader’s strike-out application, meaning the high-profile matter will go to trial.

Disgruntled business partner Sino is suing Mr Palmer over the alleged dishonest payment of more than $10m in Chinese funds to Media Circus, an advertising company, and Cosmo Developments, a company associated with Mr Palmer.

The resources businessman has denied all wrongdoing.

Justice Jackson’s written reasons for his judgment will be published soon, but the dismissal of the application means he wasn’t satisfied with Mr Palmer’s argument the Sino lawsuit was an abuse of process.

It’s likely Mr Palmer’s lawyers will now have to produce documentation revealing the politician’s “state of mind” at the time of the payments, which came from an administration account for the $10bn joint Sino Iron project in the Pilbara.

Justice Jackson said the lawyers would have to turn over documents — if they exist — that reveal what Mr Palmer’s knowledge was of the account and the payments.

Thomas Bradley QC, for Mr Palmer, tried to argue for an extension of time.

“(Mr Palmer) has some parliamentary commitments this weekend,” Mr Bradley said.

But Justice Jackson was not convinced.

“I frankly would have expected that instructions would have been taken from him by now,” he said.

The trial has now been set down for three days from November 26.