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Category: Mining Industry / Company News / Federal Government / Clive Palmer

Queensland Nickel ordered to hand over financial files

Tuesday, 13 Dec 2016 16:14:43 | Kristian Silva

The court heard former CFO Daren Wolfe is the only person who can access company documents. (ABC News: Andrew Kos)

Queensland Nickel has been ordered to hand over a huge stash of documents to liquidators investigating the collapse of the former Clive Palmer operation, but Mr Palmer's lawyer says former chief financial officer Daren Wolfe is the only person who knows how.

Liquidators, PPB, appointed by the Federal Government are trying to claw back about $70 million paid in workers' entitlements, and want to examine documents at the Townsville refinery.

In the Federal Court in Brisbane today, Mr Palmer's lawyer Sam Iskandar said Queensland Nickel might not be able to hand over the files because there could be millions stored on different computer servers at the refinery.

He said Mr Wolfe was the only person who knew how to access the files, but that he was now an external consultant.

Mr Iskandar said Queensland Nickel had previously invited the liquidators to sit down with Mr Wolfe and go through the documents — a claim denied by PPB's barrister Andrew Stumer.

Judge urges liquidators to get to work

Federal Court Justice John Dowsett said months of negotiations between PPB and Queensland Nickel had achieved little, and that it would be better for the liquidators to travel to the refinery and begin investigating.

"I just can't come up and supervise your discovery process … wouldn't it be better to go up there and just do something and at least get an idea of what's there?" he said.

"If I were you, I'd just be asking for the physical access to the records and start."

Justice Dowsett said if Queensland Nickel was unable to provide the files, its sole director Clive Mensink would be called to provide a sworn affidavit to explain why.

Mr Mensink is Mr Palmer's nephew and is yet to be served with a summons because he has been overseas.

Mr Palmer, who appeared at previous Queensland Nickel hearings, was not in court on Tuesday.

Last month, Mr Palmer's High Court application to stall questioning by the liquidators was thrown out of court.

AustraliaPlus


 

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