Palmer wins brawl over vote cash
Clive Palmer has won a fight over allegations he siphoned more than $12 million from his estranged Chinese business partners to fund his party’s election campaign.
The Queensland Supreme Court yesterday dismissed Citic Limited’s claim Mr Palmer and his private company Mineralogy fraudulently withdrew the cash from an account set up to administer a Pilbara iron ore port.
Justice David Jackson rejected Citic’s claim the money was held in trust by Mineralogy, resulting in the Chinese miner’s case against Mr Palmer collapsing.
However, Justice Jackson ruled Mr Palmer knew a $10 million payment to his company Cosmo Developments and $2.167 million to a media agency during the 2013 election were not authorised. Much of the money paid for Palmer United Party advertising and campaign expenses.
He also rejected Mr Palmer’s contention Citic acted with “unclean hands” in launching the case, saying the company had a “reasonable basis” to pursue the mining magnate turned MP.
Justice Jackson acknowledged though it was possible Citic had sought to embarrass Mr Palmer.
Justice Jackson said it was “curious” Mineralogy repaid $12.167 million before the court hearing last year, a payment neither party disclosed.
In a statement, Mr Palmer said the dismissal was no surprise, labelling the implied innuendoes against him a complete fabrication and politically motivated.
He said Citic improperly launched the case because it refused to pay him hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties and owed him an apology.
“The strategy of Citic Limited — a Chinese state-owned company — was to use unlimited Chinese Government funds to cause havoc in Australian courts with questionable integrity to break down the good name I have enjoyed in business for over 40 years,” Mr Palmer said.
Mr Palmer accused Citic of hiring PR firms and lawyers to “campaign” with journalists to ask him questions he was legally gagged from answering and to generate bad publicity.
Citic did not rule out an appeal. A spokesman said it still believed there was inappropriate and unauthorised use of the money.
“We will carefully study the decision, which turns on the technical legal question of whether contributions to the Administrative Fund were held on trust or not,” he said.
The case is just one of myriad actions between Mr Palmer’s interests and Citic.
