Clive Palmer’s highly paid mystery women

Clive Palmer says his relationship with a Kyrgyzstan woman to whom he paid $1m was strictly business, not personal.

Clive Palmer brushes past reporters outside the Federal Court in Brisbane yesterday, and Anna Palmer leaves the court.

Clive Palmer says his relationship with a Kyrgyzstan woman to whom he paid $1 million and who flew to Singapore on a $250,000 charter flight to meet him was strictly business, not personal.

The former federal MP angrily tried to avoid answering questions in the Federal Court yesterday about the woman, Evgenia Bednova, who he insisted was paid in 2012 to act as a “represent­ative” of his corporate empire in the Central Asian nation.

In heated cross-examination by barrister Walter Sofronoff QC, acting for the liquidators of Mr Palmer’s collapsed Queensland Nickel company, Mr Palmer instruct­ed his lawyers to object to the questioning, before later slamming the public examination as a “kangaroo court”.

What Palmer said ...

Mr Palmer instructed Queensland Nickel’s chief financial offic­er Daren Wolfe on November 29, 2012, to funnel $43m from QN’s bank account to his companies, himself, his Bulgarian father-in-law, his Bora Bora resort, and two foreign women.

The mining magnate said he met Ms Bednova in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, when he was the world secretary-general of the World Leadership Alliance, and also scouting for mineral opportunities. “She’s about six-foot tall, medium build. European. I don’t know if she’s European but she looks European,” Mr Palmer told the court, adding that she was aged between 35 and 40.

He said he met her in prof­essional circumstances and realise­d his companies “needed someone to deal with industry over there”.

“She acted as our representative over there,” he said.

But Mr Palmer lost his temper when he was pressed about whether he remembered ordering Mineralogy to spend $250,000 on a charter flight from Bishkek to Singapore for Ms Bednova to meet him at a Forbes conference in April 2011.

The court heard she was the only passenger on the flight.

“It would have been a commer­cial thing,” Mr Palmer said, before calling the line of questioning “absolute rubbish” and arguing it wasn’t an “examinable affair” of Queensland Nickel.

He demanded that his solicit­or, Jonathan Shaw, object, but Federal Court registrar Murray Belcher allowed the questions to continue.

Mr Palmer was being cross-examined­ as part of a public examination by liquidators who are investigating the collapse of Queensland Nickel, which failed last year costing nearly 800 jobs and leaving $300m in debts.

Mr Sofronoff: “Can you think of any business reason you would charter a jet to bring a single person at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars (from) Bishkek to Singapore?”

Mr Palmer replied that Kyrg­yzstan’s national airline had a single plane, which had crashed, and he put the wellbeing of staff ahead of financial considerations when he was having meetings with them.

Outside court, Mr Palmer was asked whether he had a personal relationship with Ms Bednova. “Not at all, only business,” he said. He said the money wasn’t for her, but to “run the office over there, and to represent and look for mineral­ opportunities”.

He claimed his companies had an office in Kyrgyzstan, as well as China, Hong Kong, Indon­esia and New Caledonia.

The court heard Mr Palmer ordered Queensland Nickel to pay a Chinese woman, Zhenghong Zang, $4.5m on the same day in November 2012. When asked outside court whether he had a personal relationship with Ms Zang, Mr Palmer replied­: “Well, just another person­ I met in the operation”.

Mr Palmer said Ms Zang was the official representative of Mineralogy in Beijing and the money was for setting up the company’s Chinese office.

He said questions about his relationships with his female staff were sexist.

Mr Palmer’s wife, Anna, was also cross-examined, about her role as a director of two of Mr Palmer’s companies, Waratah Coal and China First, which were involved in coal explorati­on in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. She had difficulty remembering details of a deal she approved two days before­ Queensland Nickel sacked 237 Townsville refinery workers in January last year.