Liquidators follow the Palmer money trail to Hong Kong bank

The Hong Kong High Court has opened Clive Palmer’s overseas accounts for Queensland Nickel liquidators to examine.

Clive Palmer outside the Supreme Court in Brisbane yesterday. Picture: AAP

Liquidators pursuing Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel missing millions have gone offshore to probe his transfer of $15 million to his Hong Kong bank account and $4.5m to a Chinese woman.

The Australian understands Queensland Nickel’s special purpose liquidators PPB Advisory have been granted extraordinary powers by the Hong Kong High Court to demand bank documents about the money Mr Palmer allegedly ordered be ­siphoned from his company’s coffers in 2012.

It is understood the liquidators made an application through Australian Federal Court judge John Dowsett for a request for assistance to the Hong Kong court, which was recently approved.

Mr Palmer is alleged to have personally ordered the transfer of more than $40m from Queensland Nickel in late ­November 2012, at the same time as he was telling reporters he was worried then-premier Campbell Newman was conspiring to confiscate his assets.

Mr Palmer allegedly funnelled $15m into his Hong Kong bank account and $4.5m — in two payments — to a Chinese woman called Zhenghong Zhang, who he later said was the Beijing representative of his flagship company Mineralogy.

He also ordered about $7.6m be sent to his father-in-law Alexander Sokolov and about $1m to Kyrgyzstani woman Evgenia Bednova.

The special purpose liquidators are trying to recover the payments through a Queensland Supreme Court lawsuit, firstly from Mr Palmer, and then — if he does not pay — from the recipients of his largesse.

It is understood the Hong Kong High Court order also gives the liquidators the power to call witnesses to be cross-examined.

The offshore strategy comes as Mr Palmer again tried — and failed — to delay a bid by liquidators to freeze $200m of his assets in the Queensland Supreme Court.

Yesterday, he launched a last-minute attempt to have Queensland Supreme Court judge John Bond removed from hearing the matter — weeks after it began — by arguing Justice Bond failed to give him enough special treatment as a self-represented litigant.

Justice Bond pointed out that Mr Palmer was wealthy and able to employ lawyers to represent him personally, but had chosen not to.

The former federal MP has also briefed at least four barristers to represent the interests of his companies in the same case.

Justice Bond swiftly rejected Mr Palmer’s plea, ruling there was not the “slightest case” of unfairness, and later dismissed an application by Mr Palmer for the matter to be adjourned.