The son of fugitive Queensland Nickel director Clive Mensink says his father is "having way too much fun" overseas and has no plans to return to Australia to face questioning over the collapse of the Townsville refinery.
Two arrest warrants have been issued for Mr Mensink, the nephew of Clive Palmer, who was Queensland Nickel's sole director when it collapsed in 2016, putting hundreds of people out of work.
Liquidators have been unable to question Mr Mensink because he has been out of the country since 2016 and has ignored court orders to return to Australia.
In February, News Corp journalists claimed to have found Mr Mensink hiding out in the eastern European nation of Bulgaria.
In the Federal Court in Brisbane on Friday, Mr Mensink's son Ryan said his father had previously travelled to America but now he had "no idea" where he was.
"It's possible he could be in Bulgaria, it's possible he could be anywhere else," Ryan Mensink said.
He said he did not expect his father to return home and volunteered a "theory" for his absence.
"Australia holds lot of bad memories for him. My parents recently got divorced and it's a difficult place to be," he said.
"He's probably having too much fun to come back."
Ryan told the court he had received numerous payments from his absent father, some of which were for a couch and to expand Mr Mensink's luxury watch collection.
Under cross-examination, Ryan said he exchanged messages with his father on WhatsApp until early February, but deleted their conversations and the number associated with his father's account.
Ryan said he "didn't want to handle" the extra workload involved in producing messages if he was ever summoned to give evidence.
"If I got called up to one of these [hearings], I could turn around and say I didn't have anything," he said.
He said his only point of contact for his father now was via an email account.
Outside court, Ryan did not respond directly to questions from reporters about his father's whereabouts.
When asked if he wanted to say anything, he replied: "How well does this suit go?"
Meanwhile, Mr Palmer's legal team said it needed further time to comply with a court order to hand over any communications the billionaire had with Mr Mensink in the past two years.
Vodafone, Telstra and Westpac have also been ordered to hand over any information they had that could shed light on Mr Mensink's whereabouts.
