Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy legal team lashes CITIC disclosures after accidental sharing of Chen Zeng email

Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy has intensified its attacks on disclosures by CITIC Pacific as they fight over the future of the $20 billion Sino Iron project. Mineralogy is using an email chain from August 2021 involving recently-retired CITIC chair Chen Zeng to push for Supreme Court orders that the Hong Kong-based miner disclose more about plans for its Pilbara mining, processing and shipping operations. With Mr Palmer’s talk last week of a peace deal a faded memory, Mineralogy’s legal team claims an email chain accidentally disclosed by CITIC’s lawyers reveals the depth of material withheld by the miner. Pointing to Mr Zeng having forwarded the email chain to his account at a related company, Mineralogy barrister Peter Dunning said it seemed the former CITIC boss had a “repository of relevant documents”. Mineralogy latest document push comes in the opening days of a planned three-week hearing into CITIC’s application for orders forcing the Palmer group to consider or approve a mine continuation proposal it filed in August 2023. CITIC needs the backing of Mineralogy for its plans given the group controls the magnetite-rich land running south from Cape Preston under a State Agreement. The Court of Appeal is yet to hand down a judgment on CITIC’s appeal against a judgment that Mineralogy won in 2022 over a similar mine continuation proposal the miner shared in 2017. CITIC says it could have to suspend operations at the Sino Iron project if it does not gain approval for its expansion plans, warning it could soon run out of space to store tailings. Ore was now being dug out of a narrow, difficult part of an aging pit. CITIC barrister Jonathan Kirkwood claimed in his opening address that Mineralogy responded to the August 2023 mine continuation proposal with a variety of unfounded allegations and “entirely boilerplate” questions. These questions included the details of all the the Sino projects geological information, facility plans, health and safety plans and any notices from government agencies. In line with more than a decade of legal blues, the rival teams spent much of this week arguing about objections to evidence, Mineralogy’s push to tender 200 documents recently shared by CITIC as evidence and the Palmer team’s push for even more disclosures. Fighting CITIC’s application, Mineralogy claims CITIC has failed to provide sufficient information about the expansion proposals. Mr Dunning said documents like an attachment to the August 2021 email archived by Mr Zeng “would have allowed us to calibrate our requests” for information about the 2023 proposal. He said information provided by CITIC about its expansion proposals was confusing, with material related to the 2017 plans only be made clear during cross examination of retired executive Bob Goodwin in 2022. Mr Kirkwood said attachment to the August 2021 email had been created for CITIC’s lawyers as part of preparations for Mr Goodwin’s statement for the 2022 hearing. He said Mineralogy had a history of asserting that newly-discovered material was “revelatory” and not previously disclosed by CITIC. But he said CITIC had shared drilling results, life on mine plans, resource updates and CITIC’s plans for extraction of 3 billion tonnes of magnetite ore. Justice Michael Lundberg has reserved his decision on Mineralogy’s document push