Sino Iron fraud court case founded on fiction, says lawyer

CLIVE Palmer has launched a legal bid to stymie Chinese company Sino Iron’s $10 million fraud lawsuit against him.

CLIVE Palmer has launched a legal bid to stymie Chinese company Sino Iron’s $10 million fraud lawsuit against him, claiming it is “founded on fiction”, an abuse of process and an attempt to publicly damage his reputation.

He is also trying to block the media from viewing potentially damaging affidavits and other ­material filed in the Queensland Supreme Court by his Chinese-owned adversaries.

Sino Iron, a subsidiary of the state-owned Citic Pacific, is suing Mr Palmer and Cosmo Developments for $10m. It claims both knew of allegedly fraudulent, dishonest and unauthorised payments of $12m in Chinese funds from an account held in trust by Mr Palmer’s Mineralogy.

The administrative account was part of a contract between Mineralogy and Sino Iron, relating to the $10 billion Sino Iron resources project in Western Australia. Sino Iron alleges the unauthorised payments were a breach of trust.

Mr Palmer has denied all wrongdoing and late on Tuesday night stepped up his challenge to Sino Iron’s multi-million-dollar claim by filing an application asking the Supreme Court to strike out or permanently stay the suit.

Queensland Supreme Court judge David Jackson will hear Mr Palmer’s full application on September 23, but barrister Tom Bradley QC, for Mr Palmer, outlined the key grounds yesterday.

“It is to be contended that the proceeding is an abuse of process on the basis that it is founded on fiction,” Mr Bradley said.

He said Mr Palmer was wrongly being personally targeted for compensation, when there was no allegation that any of the funds had gone to the businessman.

And Mr Bradley said the timing of the claim was suspicious, alleging that it was motivated by a ­desire to cause the Palmer United Party leader maximum reputational damage.

At Mr Palmer’s request, media organisations and other interested third parties have been temporarily blocked from viewing reams of affidavits and supporting documents lodged by Sino Iron late on Tuesday. Mr Bradley argued that the documents, which include details of confidential arbitration hearings between the two parties, should stay under wraps until they have been tendered in court as exhibits. If Mr Palmer’s stay application is successful, that could be permanent.

While Justice Jackson said court documents and proceedings should be conducted in public, he agreed to keep the affidavits sealed until next week, when he would hear legal argument on the issue.