The billionaire who once listed his hobby as litigation told reporters he had a ‘moral responsibility’ to fight the $200m claim by liquidators

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

“My name is Clive Palmer, your honour, and I appear for myself, the fourth defendant.”

An hour before making this statement, the billionaire Clive Frederick Palmer told reporters outside the Queensland supreme court he had a “moral responsibility” to fight the $200m claim by the liquidators of Queensland Nickel, his Townsville business that collapsed in 2016.

“People all across Australia are having trouble now with liquidators and receivers, businesses are closing ... because of their unconscionable behaviour,” Palmer huffed.

“So when that happens to someone like me, I’ve got a moral responsibility not to give up. That’s what I’m doing. It is the greater good.”

Clive Palmer settles Queensland Nickel lawsuit, agrees to pay sacked workers Read more

For three years, Palmer has consistently denied responsibility for QNI’s string of debts – including entitlements for workers and payments to other creditors – even as court evidence mounted that, as the business faltered, he had dispersed more than $170m from the company’s accounts.

Palmer once listed his hobby as litigation and is renowned for his legal tactics to prolong legal action and rack up costs for opponents. His companies had hired a coterie of solicitors, barristers and experts. But Palmer also sat at the bar table, representing himself and appearing to revel in the spectacle, holding court in the courtroom.

On Queensland Nickel, Palmer, the fourth defendant, appeared to have made it clear in any number of ways that he wasn’t the settling kind.

And then, on the first day of the third week of the trial, he settled.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Clive Palmer (centre) has consistently denied he owed anything to the workers. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Transactions of the ‘most extraordinary kind’

After Queensland Nickel collapsed, liquidators pored over its books and learned dozens of questionable payments had been made from its accounts; payments which appeared to have no logical link to the operation of the business. Most of the money went to Palmer, his family or his other corporate interests. Liquidators later alleged in court that the billionaire used the company as his “personal piggy bank”.

There was the $8m payment to his father-in-law, Alexander Sokolov. A mysterious woman in Kyrgyzstan was sent $1m. A $15m payment from Queensland Nickel’s accounts went to Palmer’s personal bank account in Hong Kong; and another $15m was sent to French Polynesia, as operational finance for a former Club Med resort in Bora Bora, which Palmer had bought to become a personal retreat. None of the payments were disputed.

Liquidators alleged Palmer acted as a “shadow director” of QNI. Part of Palmer’s defence was that the complex corporate structure effectively allowed him to authorise the payments.

Queensland Nickel operated the Yabulu refinery at Townsville. The failed company was a joint venture between two others – QNI Metals and QNI Resources – both owned by Palmer. He chaired a “joint venture owners’ committee” as the sole owner of both ventures.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lawyer for the liquidators of Queensland Nickel, Shane Doyle. Photograph: Jono Searle/EPA

In September 2016, as court hearings began, Palmer produced a “little green book” , a leather-bound 2001 diary that he claimed to have found in a drawer in 2009 and subsequently used to make notes, in pencil, varying the joint venture agreement. At the opening of the trial, Shane Doyle, who represented the liquidators, said he intended to demonstrate the entries were falsified.

The scrawled notes purportedly gave Palmer the power to order QNI to make political donations or “any matter or thing requested or required by Clive Palmer”, including investing in Palmer companies.

The court heard that by the time of its closure Queensland Nickel was losing $5m a month. Doyle told the court that, after Palmer knew that the company was going into administration, and that workers at the refinery would lose their jobs, he had QNI buy $230m in shares in two other Palmer companies, essentially putting those entities at the front of any creditors’ queue.

“They are transactions of the most extraordinary kind,” Doyle told the court.

‘I don’t owe them any money’

At the heart of the collapse of Queensland Nickel, and the subsequent court case, has always been the workers; about 800 in total were made redundant when the business closed.

The federal government, under its fair entitlements guarantee, paid out $66m of about $73m in entitlements owing to workers. It then sought a special purpose liquidator to investigate the events leading to the closure of the refinery, and to attempt to recover unpaid money.

Palmer has consistently denied he owed anything to the workers. He most famously repeated that claim in a fiery interview with Leigh Sales on ABC’s 7.30 in 2018.

“I don’t owe them any money, that’s the reality of it,” Palmer said at the time.

He argued that administrators refused to allow a plan that would have paid creditors in 2016 and transferred the refinery’s workers to a separate corporate entity. Liquidators described that claim as “scandalous, defamatory and grossly misleading”.

For three years, legal proceedings were frequently marked with such bluster and bitterness.

Clive Palmer paid $1 for Queensland Nickel, court told Read more

Two judges recused themselves from the supreme court case, both after Palmer made applications suggesting bias. The second of those, Justice David Jackson, accused Palmer of “scandalising conduct”.

Doyle alleged during proceedings that it had become clear that “Mr Palmer will manipulate events to defeat (the actions by liquidators) by whatever means are at his disposal”.

In 2o17, while being questioned on the whereabouts of his nephew, the fugitive former QNI director Clive Mensink, Palmer turned up to a court hearing with a sick bag, breathing apparatus and a pillow. He told the court he was taking medication that caused memory loss.

Palmer dropped out of the Forbes list of the 50 richest Australians, left federal parliament and wound up the first version of his political vehicle, the Palmer United party. There were times when the liquidators privately questioned whether they would find any money after the melodrama.

It continued on the eve of the trial, as Palmer applied to delay proceedings. His insolvency expert, Peter Dinoris, backed out of the hearing, citing ill health.

Palmer eventually found a replacement who, it transpired during the second week of the hearing, had gone to South America.

“It turns out he’s actually in Brazil on Friday and can’t actually see us,” Christopher Ward, representing Palmer’s companies, told the court.

Palmer: I’m vindicated

Palmer has returned to the Forbes rich list, after a bounce in resources prices and a huge 2017 court win in a royalties dispute with the Chinese firm Citic, an estranged joint venture partner on a Pilbara iron ore project. The ruling re-energised Palmer. The yellow political billboards returned, amid a $60m advertising spend for his United Australia party across 18 months before the federal election.

He now says he wants to reopen the refinery, and in April set up a $7m trust to cover payments owed to workers, which were above the capped amounts for the federal scheme. Some have still not been paid, refusing to sign an accompanying gag clause.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Palmer wants to reopen his Queensland Nickel refinery near Townsville. Photograph: Andrew Rankin/AAP

The settlement announced on Monday, understood to total $110m, involves repaying the federal government for the entitlements it has already paid, “all other outstanding employee entitlements, and a full recovery for the majority of unsecured creditors”.

A small number of debt claims against Palmer’s flagship company, Mineralogy, remain in dispute and before the courts.

Special purpose liquidator Stephen Parbery of KPMG said settlement negotiations began after “the full weight of evidence was laid before the defendants”.

Palmer, not famous for critical self-reflection, claimed the settlement of the debts had left him “vindicated”.



“Today’s settlement confirms the actions against me were nothing more than a witch-hunt designed to smear my good reputation,” Palmer said.