Billionaire businessman Clive Palmer has frustrated the judge in the Queensland Nickel collapse trial with his tardy effort finding a new expert witness.

July 23, 2019

Clive Palmer’s tardy effort to find a replacement expert insolvency witness for the Queensland Nickel refinery collapse trial has earned another rebuke from the judge.

The billionaire businessman’s first pick pulled out days before the Brisbane Supreme Court trial began, prompting the mining magnate to seek a long-term adjournment on his first day in court.

Justice Debra Mullins ordered the nine-week trial continue to hear liquidators’ claims against Mr Palmer for about $200 million that they say is owed to creditors.

Mr Palmer was told to find a replacement quickly but this process has not gone as smoothly as Justice Mullins would have liked. 

“Has Mr Hughes (the new expert) been retained, is he working on the matter?” she asked the Palmer camp late on Monday.

“I think the answer is: ‘Not today’,” a lawyer for Mr Palmer’s companies, Dr Chris Ward responded.

“I was in discussions with Mr Hughes on Friday, he indicated to us he had availability from this Friday” Mr Palmer chimed in.

“It’s so important, your expert, I would have hoped he would be working … from last Friday,” a clearly exasperated Justice Mullins said.

On Tuesday morning, Dr Ward reported Mr Hughes had been formally retained overnight.

But an application from the Palmer camp to postpone other witnesses to accommodate the delay in retaining him was rebuffed by Justice Mullins.

“That may be part of the price to be paid for not having looked for an expert at an earlier point in time,” she said.

The trial continues with US mining valuations expert Richard Marston, who was the co-author of a report scrutinising Mr Palmer’s China First and Waratah Coal mining assets in the Galilee Basin, in the witness stand.

The court has previously heard that as QN hurtled towards collapse, the company was $25 million in the red and losing $5 million more each month as creditors circled.

Despite this, in the days before administrators were called, QN allegedly signed mining deals worth $235 million with China First and Waratah Coal.

The agreements were allegedly of no commercial benefit to QN and worthless but paid Mr Palmer ahead of workers if the refinery went into administration.