Clive Palmer is expected to make a second deal and settle another part of the massive $200 million lawsuit against him over the collapse of Queensland Nickel.

August 5, 2019

Clive Palmer is expected to make another deal over the Queensland Nickel collapse after lawyers at the $200 million liquidation trial spent much of last week in behind-the-scenes settlement talks.

The billionaire businessman made his first concession on Thursday, agreeing to pay $18 million to settle an $88 million claim for unpaid Aurizon rail transport fees, the largest creditor claim against him.

It was the first concession the mining magnate, who previously said he has “a moral responsibility” to fight liquidators, has made during his nine-week Brisbane Supreme Court trial.

News of the Aurizon claim breakthrough was swiftly followed by a top lawyer for the liquidators, Shane Doyle, saying they “hoped to advance” other issues between them and the defendants with more talks.

Late on Friday afternoon, a lawyer for Mr Palmer’s companies, Dr Chris Ward SC, excused himself from the court to re-enter those talks saying he’d return within the hour.

But at the close of the day’s proceedings, Mr Ward and Mr Doyle were still in talks and, with no information about the prospective deal, Justice Debra Mullins adjourned the matter to Monday.

Despite the progress being made resolving the three-year stand-off, Mr Palmerwas again a no show at court for most of last week.

He’s been absent since Tuesday, when he told Justice Mullins he needed to take a day off from the trial to brief an expert witness, who is expected to testify that QN wasn’t trading insolvently in the months before Mr Palmer’s team called in administrators.

The court has previously heard that as the refinery hurtled towards collapse in late 2015, the ailing company was $25 million in the red and losing $5 million more each month with creditors circling.

The refinery’s debt-riddled predicament came to a head in January 2016 when Aurizon rejected Mr Palmer’s team’s payment plan for their rail transport debts and threatened to suspend its services.

QN then entered voluntary administration, which led to the refinery closing three months later.

The trial continues on Monday.