Clives hunted for $500m

Taxpayer-funded liquidators are suing Clive Palmer and his fugitive nephew Clive Mensink for almost $500m.

Clive Palmer prepares to board a cruise ship for a Mediterranean sojourn. Picture: Martin Seras Lima

Taxpayer-funded liquidators are suing Clive Palmer and his fugitive nephew Clive Mensink for ­almost $500 million, alleging they breached their directors’ duties, allowed Queensland Nickel to trade while insolvent, and owe other debts.

The mammoth lawsuit is the first legal assault by the Turnbull government’s hand-picked liqui­dators — fuelled by months of public examinations — and targets Mr Palmer personally, his corporate empire, his family, and two mysterious foreign women to whom he paid millions of dollars.

Liquidators PPB Advisory’s Queensland Supreme Court claim names as defendants Evgenia Bednova, from Kyrgyzstan, and Hong Kong-based Zhenghong Zhang, and sues the women for $959,727 and $4.5m respectively.

Mr Palmer allegedly ordered Queensland Nickel to pay Ms Zhang and Ms Bednova in Nov­ember 2012, in payments he later defended as legitimate and work-related.

Documents filed in the court by PPB Advisory allege Mr Palmer “wilfully and recklessly” ripped cash from Townsville’s Queensland Nickel to prop up his other businesses and to buy golf courses, resorts and vintage cars, before the company’s collapse.

If successful, the liquidators’ claims would threaten Mr Palmer’s reported $344m personal fortune, with the lawsuit targeting him individually for more than $290m and his companies for hundreds of millions more.

North Queensland’s largest private employer, Queensland Nickel, collapsed early last year, costing 800 workers their jobs and owing creditors more than $300m. Federal taxpayers shelled out $70m to cover redundancy entitlements owed to the ­refinery’s sacked employees.

Mr Palmer — understood to be on a Mediterranean cruise due to finish on Sunday in Venice — last night labelled the lawsuit a “political stunt by a desperate Prime Minister”. In a text to The Australian he said it was “not a valid claim, will be struck out if ever they serve it, abuse process done for an improper purpose”.

Clive Mensink.

He has repeatedly ­denied any responsibility for the collapse of Queensland Nickel.

Solicitor Sam Iskander, who is acting for Mr Palmer in several Queensland Nickel-related legal skirmishes, said the claim had not yet been served on the 21 defendants. “Once I receive notification of service and instruction from my clients, if they wish to retain me, then I will be in a better position to determine whether it will be ­defended or otherwise,” he said. In the documents, liquidators allege that although Mr Palmer claimed he was retired from business while serving as the federal MP for the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax, he was ­actually a “shadow director” of Queensland Nickel.

He is alleged to have used his “Terry Smith” alias email ­address to instruct Queensland Nickel’s sole registered director, Mr Mensink, his nephew, and other senior refinery staff about the running of the plant.

The Federal Court this year issued an arrest warrant for Mr Mensink after he shirked several orders to cut short a marathon overseas holiday to return to Australia and testify.

Defendant Evgenia Bednova.

Liquidators are suing Mr Mensink for $110m for alleged breaches of his duties as a ­director. PPB Advisory also wants both Mr Palmer and Mr Mensink to pay $13m for the debts incurred after Queensland Nickel allegedly became insolvent on October 5, 2015, four months ­before the company was placed into voluntary administration.

Among the other ­defendants are Mr Palmer’s Bulgarian ­father-in-law, Alexander Sokolov, who is alleged to have ­received $7.6m from Queensland Nickel on the ­orders of Mr Palmer in November 2012.

Ms Bednova and Ms Zhang will not have to repay the money sought if Mr Palmer pays it back, the court documents say.

In public testimony to the Federal Court earlier this year, Mr Palmer defended the payments as legitimate, arguing he was using his own money, not Queensland Nickel’s.

He said he had paid Ms Bednova, who he said had previous experience in trade-related matters, for “representation fees”.