CITIC Pacific fights Palmer’s $1.8b-plus Queensland Nickel claim, blasting his ‘idiosyncratic’ activities

CITIC Pacific has fired back in a $1.8 billion-plus legal battle with Clive Palmer, claiming the royalties billionaire expected the Pilbara miner to underwrite his “idiosyncratic business activities” for three decades. Fighting Mr Palmer’s attempts to recover alleged losses from the January 2016 collapse of Queensland Nickel, CITIC barrister Noel Hutley said an agreement for the Sino Iron project did not cover every Palmer investment. “He wants some sort of guarantee for his commercial decisions,” Mr Hutley said. “We underwrite it — no matter how significant and silly those investments and what he is choosing for 30 years.” Mr Palmer claims in the WA Supreme Court that CITIC’s delays in paying disputed royalties from the Sino project caused Queensland Nickel’s collapse and the permanent closure of its Yabulu refinery, near Townsville. CITIC and Mr Palmer’s flagship Mineralogy struck a series of deals in the late 2000s that led to the Hong Kong-listed company developing the $20 billion Sino magnetite iron ore mining, processing and shipping operation around Cape Preston. Thanks to Mineralogy holding the Pilbara land under a State Agreement, billions of dollars in iron ore royalties have flowed to Mr Palmer since 2013 and made him one of Australia’s richest men. While the major category of royalty was always uncontested, Mr Palmer and CITIC fought in the WA Supreme Court for four years over a smaller, more complex royalty originally based on a scrapped price benchmark. Mr Palmer won a Supreme Court judgment in 2017 to be paid upwards of $200m in this second royalty category. Opening Mr Palmer’s action aimed at connecting delayed royalty payments to the Queensland Nickel collapse, the billionaire’s barrister Peter Dunning said CITIC imagined it was somehow not in breach of its contractual obligations for four years. “Their breach is a matter of record in this court,” Mr Dunning said. CITIC says its main agreement with Mineralogy was related to the Sino Iron project and not Mr Palmer’s other business activities. And if Mr Palmer established he was covered by an indemnity under this agreement, CITIC says he had not provided evidence of what he lost on Queensland Nickel or that he had taken all reasonable steps to minimise these losses. Mr Hutley said the evidence would show that Mr Palmer did not comply with his obligations under the agreement through which he wants CITIC to pay for his purported Queensland Nickel losses. The barrister told Justice Michael Lundberg that Mr Palmer’s “obvious unwillingness to step into the witness box” should be assessed against evidence that the billionaires did not comply with his obligations. “He declines to make himself available . . . to explain what he did, why he did it and what he believed or understood about these events,” Mr Hutley said. CITIC claims that Mr Palmer admitted in other proceeding he could have funded Queensland Nickel when it was distressed. Justice Lundberg earlier this month killed an expert report commissioned by Mr Palmer estimating the post-collapse value of Yabulu to be anything from zero to $227m after its collapse. The hearing continues on Monday.