This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Liquidators seeking to recover about $200m from the collapse of Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel business have told the Queensland supreme court they intend to prove that critical notebook entries, purportedly empowering Palmer to use the company’s finances for other purposes, were falsified.

The long-awaited civil trial began on Tuesday morning. The hearing is scheduled to run for nine weeks.

Evidence before Justice Debra Mullins is expected to include the financial records of hundreds of transactions from Queensland Nickel bank accounts before the company was placed into administration in January 2016, resulting in the closure of the Yabulu refinery and the sacking of more than 200 employees.

Many of the companies and individuals who received those payments are named as co-defendants.

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The case is likely to centre on the complex company structure in place at the refinery. The operator, Queensland Nickel, was formed as a joint venture between two Palmer-controlled companies, QNI metals and QNI resources.

In his opening address, barrister Shane Doyle QC, for the liquidators, spoke about a “green book” in which amendments to the joint venture agreement were purportedly made. Those amendments gave Palmer the ability to direct Queensland Nickel to make political donations and to support him “in his activities”.

Doyle said the book, first produced by Palmer in 2016, “professes to contain agreed variations of the joint venture agreement” made in 2009 and 2012.

“Notwithstanding … that when in the ordinary course of business the joint venture agreement was produced, prior to the production of the green book, no one … referred to those various changes,” Doyle said. “Many of the entries in it, we hope to demonstrate … to be false.”

Earlier, Palmer had argued unsuccessfully for another lengthy delay to the trial, after a key defence witness became ill and would be unable to give evidence.

Peter Dinoris, a liquidator, was to be called as an expert witness for Palmer and his businesses. Palmer told the court he became aware that Dinoris might not be able to give evidence upon returning from a European holiday, after the federal election.

“I don’t feel … confidence to mount a proper defence,” Palmer, who is representing himself, told the court. “Through no fault of my own … whether he’s sick or what his position is, all I know is that I find myself in this position and he’s not available. I seek an adjournment, so that I can have a fair hearing in this matter.”

Mullins ordered that the trial proceed but deferred hearing expert evidence until the final week, to give Palmer and his businesses time to obtain a new expert report.