The Herald has previously revealed that several licences were awarded to a $1 company run by a 36-year-old Bankstown mortgage broker, Andrew Kaidbay, who had no experience in the resources industry. Mr Kaidbay is an associate of the Obeid family and was the director of three resource companies in which the Obeids' majority shareholding was hidden via a nominee company. The commission will also examine whether the decision to open the area in the Bylong Valley to mining was influenced by Mr Obeid and if confidential information regarding the tender process was given to people associated with the successful bidder, Cascade Coal. The Obeid family paid $3.65 million for Cherrydale Park in the Bylong Valley, about 80 kilometres east of Mudgee, nine months before the tender opened. Mr Obeid's son Moses encouraged associates to buy other properties in the area, telling them: ''We can't be seen to be buying them all''. One friend, Justin Kennedy Lewis, bought Coggan Creek, where an open-cut mine is now scheduled. Another Obeid associate, Gladesville accountant John Campo, bought a key property.

Cascade Coal, which won the tender covering the Obeid group's farms, later bought rights to the Obeids' property for an undisclosed sum, believed to be more than $10 million. Cascade Coal, a former events management company run by boutique investment banker Richard Poole, had been set up in August 2008, the same week expressions of interest were called. Joining Richard Poole on the Cascade board as the tender was closing were some well-known and extremely wealthy players in the mining industry - John McGuigan, John Atkinson, Brian Flannery, John Kinghorn and Travers Duncan. But when the publicly listed White Energy announced it had been offered the chance to buy Cascade Coal for almost $500 million, there was an outcry among shareholders. Not only was Cascade's only asset two exploration licences acquired for $1 million but most of Cascade's directors were also directors of White Energy. These directors stood to make close to $60 million each if the deal went ahead, which it did not. Also under the ICAC spotlight is the circumstance of awarding the Doyles Creek licence - without going to tender - to Mr Macdonald's friend, the former union boss John Maitland. The circumstances behind Mr Roozendaal's acquisition of a Honda CRV, given to him by Moses Obeid, will also be examined. In mid-June 2007, Mr Roozendaal, then the roads minister, arrived at an inner-city car dealer's and asked for the keys to his new car, a top-of-the-range black Honda CRV.

The dealer, who had previously provided cars to Eddie Obeid and members of his family said Moses Obeid had told him the Obeids were organising a car for Mr Roozendaal. Loading Mr Roozendaal previously confirmed that Moses Obeid had organised the purchase for him but said his actions had ''all been completely kosher'' and he had paid for the car himself. Eddie Obeid said he knew nothing of the matter. ''I don't know anything about it and Eric has done me no favours in politics. What is the favour that Eric could do me? There's no favours that Eric can do for me in anything,'' Mr Obeid said last year. ''You write one thing out of place, I tell you what, I will go for you, for the jugular,'' he said.