NAB to hand over Clive Palmer documents in Citic Pacific row

CLIVE Palmer’s bank at the heart of a row over his company’s alleged wrongful siphoning of Chinese funds will hand over key documents.

Clive Palmer arriving at Parliament House in Canberra.

CLIVE Palmer’s bank at the heart of a row over his company’s alleged wrongful siphoning of more than $12 million of Chinese funds will hand over key documents and account information that so far has been withheld from a secret ongoing probe.

New legal documents, part of a Supreme Court hearing in Brisbane yesterday, show Mr Palmer’s bank has decided to disclose all the account information.

National Australia Bank was given until July 11 to produce copies of “all documents in relation to the opening of the bank account” — Port Palmer Operations — as well as a number of bank statements. Documents filed in the Supreme Court in Brisbane show the bank’s senior legal counsel, Brue Hollas, has told lawyers for Chinese government-owned company Citic Pacific that NAB “does not oppose” the action, and “will abide by the decision of the court in the matter”.

A probe by retired Supreme Court judge Richard Chesterman QC, in arbitration proceedings, revolves around “cheques numbered 2046 and 2073 in respect of the withdrawal of $10,000,000 on 8 August (2013) and the withdrawal of $2,167,065.60 on 2 September from the bank account”. The withdrawals were made during last year’s election campaign.

Supreme Court judge Ann Lyons yesterday made orders to give weight to Mr Chesterman’s orders that the documents must be provided. The row over the missing money is likely to be referred to police after arbitration has concluded. Citic Pacific has accused Mr Palmer’s company, Mineralogy, of wrongfully siphoning the bank account’s funds, which were meant to be used only for the operation of a port in Western Australia. About $23 million has been spent by Mr Palmer’s company from the account, despite the company neither operating nor managing the port of Cape Preston, which was built for iron ore exports.

Mr Chesterman is trying to determine who, in Mineralogy, authorised the two large cheque withdrawals as well as a series of other transactions on the account, where the money went, and whether its expenditure was wrongful. Mr Palmer has strenuously denied any wrongdoing and said last week he didn’t “knock off” the money. He has accused Citic of not paying for Australian res­ources. He has described The Australian’s reporting relating to Mineralogy’s dealings with Citic Pacific as “completely false”.