Clive Palmer has claimed that a $500,000 loan from Queensland Nickel coffers to a longtime business associate hired to run the refinery was related to the business because it wanted to keep him in Townsville.
Palmer said he later personally waived the contractual requirement for QN managing director Ian Ferguson to repay the loan within a month after he left the company when it was wound up in April, owing creditors about $300m.
On a combative third day of interrogations over QN’s collapse, Palmer told a federal court interrogator he sent a legal letter “purely to annoy” him and separately launched a high court bid to stop liquidators questioning him beyond this week.
Palmer rejected a suggestion by liquidator’s examiner Cathy Muir that the $500,000 loan to Ferguson was “to him personally and nothing to do with the joint venture”.
Palmer said Ferguson, who he worked with selling property in the mid-1970s before headhunting him for QN decades later, approached him for the loan in early 2014 and that “it wasn’t a big deal for me, $500,000”.
He said the QN group had used the loan as incentive to keep Ferguson, who had “pressing financial problems outside of Queensland and we were concerned we would lose him”.
“We made a judgment about supporting people in times of difficulty and we were happy to make the loan available for that purpose,” Palmer said.
Palmer said he directed a contract be drawn up for the loan, which included the proviso for repayment upon 30 days after leaving QN’s employ, and Ferguson was paid from a QN bank account.
When liquidators sent a letter to Ferguson demanding repayment of the loan in April, Palmer said he told Ferguson it was “bullshit” and he should tell them to “stick it”.
“The waiver [of the need to repay] was done by me personally,” Palmer said, saying Ferguson had been paid from cash that was owned by QN’s joint-venture parent companies. Palmer had “full authority” to do so as chairman of a joint venture owners committee.
“I told them to stick it and if they had some claim to see you in court.”
Muir suggested Palmer had “no difficulties giving money to your friend Mr Ferguson”.
“That’s rubbish,” Palmer said. “He’s not being given a loan because he’s a friend of mine. I don’t give people loans because of friendship.”
Muir asked why the loan contract with Ferguson was with QN and not the parent companies that Palmer maintains owned the cash. She suggested Palmer would be “horrified” to see the wrong parties on the contract. Palmer said he had viewed many documents over that period and couldn’t recall seeing that one.
But Palmer said the loan paperwork was wrong and that “lawyers always make mistakes with legal documents”.
Palmer later thumbed his nose at another federal court interrogator, saying he sent a legal letter “purely to annoy” him and pledging to get a high court injunction to avoid giving details of his personal bank accounts.
Barrister Tom Sullivan asked Palmer about the purpose of a letter from his lawyers to the liquidators’ legal team advising that a meeting of QN shareholders had “ratified” handwritten decrees in Palmer’s “little green book”.
Palmer had produced the notebook just weeks before hearings into QN’s collapse, saying his personal notes in pencil represented decisions including corporate changes that allowed him to channel the nickel venture’s funds however he wished.
“We thought it was a good way to make you angry, to ratify things because we knew you wouldn’t like it,” Palmer told Sullivan. “That’s why we did it, because we didn’t like you.”
When Palmer was pressed on whether he was willing to provide details of his personal bank accounts, he said: “We’ll be seeking an injunction in the high court restraining you in this matter … as soon as I can get out of this witness box and start doing it.”
Palmer, who earlier told the court he was well known as Australia’s richest man in 2009 with a wealth of $12bn, volunteered his bank accounts included one in Papua New Guinea but he had “no idea of the balance”.
He said he owned “hundreds of vehicles” but personally drove “about 15”, including a Ferrari, a Bentley and a Rolls Royce.
The letter on 1 September referred to a 1 September meeting by the joint venture shareholders.
Sullivan pressed Palmer on who the “we” – as in the shareholders making the decision to “ratify” Palmer’s “little green book” – were, saying Palmer was the 100% beneficial owner of the companies.
“When you say ‘we’, it was you, wasn’t it?” Sullivan said.
Palmer told Sullivan, “you’re confusing yourself”, saying while his personal opinion was the meeting wasn’t necessary, he’d acted in a “corporate” capacity.
He told Sullivan “your repeated questioning on Friday was very boring” and he decided “let’s put it in writing” to reinforce his testimony that all directions he gave to staff at the failing QN were authorised as he was chairman of a joint venture owners committee.
