Palmer suffers new defeat in brawl with Chinese giant Citic Pacific
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/palmer-suffers-new-defeat-in-brawl-with-chinese-gia...
Looks like Clives house of cards is starting to tumble
CLIVE Palmer has suffered a defeat in his brawl with Chinese giant Citic Pacific after his efforts to take control of a key iron ore port in Western Australia’s Pilbara region were knocked back by the Federal Court today.
In Perth, the Federal Court threw out his application to become the security operator at Cape Preston, while in a separate case in Sydney, Federal Court of Australia Justice Robert Buchanan overturned an earlier judgement giving Mr Palmer’s flagship resources company Mineralogy control of the port.
The rulings are a blow to Mr Palmer’s long-running efforts to wrest control of the port from Citic.
The federal MP’s private company, Mineralogy, argued in court earlier this month that the federal Infrastructure Department erred last year when it removed Mineralogy from its role in charge of security at Cape Preston and appointed Citic instead.
The department’s decision to approve Citic’s maritime security plan — a key measure in combating terrorism — paved the way for the Chinese state-owned company to begin exports from its $10 billion-plus Sino Iron project last December.
Sino Iron and Mr Palmer’s Mineralogy are joint venture partners in the Cape Preston Port which has been used to export iron ore since late last year.
However the two companies have been locked in fierce dispute over control of the port, which was built and funded by Citic Pacific.
Mr Palmer claimed the federal decision to accept the maritime security plan had allowed Citic to lock out Mineralogy’s employees at Cape Preston.
But in Perth, Justice Neil McKerracher ruled against Mineralogy and ordered it to pay Citic’s legal costs.
“Mineralogy’s complaints cannot be sustained,” he said in a judgement. “I have rejected Mineralogy’s arguments on each point.”
Citic said it was “pleased” that the Federal Court had upheld the department’s decision.
In a separate legal action over control of the port, lawyers for Sino Iron and Citic Pacific had argued Mineralogy should not have been granted federal government approval to control the port as it failed to meet a string of key requirements.
Among other things, Mineralogy had failed to demonstrate how it would enforce security at the international port, Sino Iron barrister Alan Archibald had previously told the court.
Mineralogy lawyer James Peters SC rejected claims the company had been improperly appointed to run the port and that Mineralogy had the “blessing of the state” to do so.
In January last year the federal Department of Infrastructure announced Mineralogy would be the port operator ‘for the security regulated port of Cape Preston’, but later reversed that decision, alleging it found “fundamental factual inaccuracies and omissions” in Mineralogy’s plans for the port that would have compromised security at the facility.
It concluded that the allegedly false claims in Mineralogy’s maritime security plan meant it was “not likely to properly … contribute towards reducing the vulnerability to terrorist attack of the port or to reducing the risk that the facilities at the port are used to facilitate terrorist or other unlawful activities”.
Sino Iron sued to gain control of the port but in February The Federal Court ruled in favour of Mineralogy.
Sino Iron appealed and the court this afternoon ordered the orders of “February 5 be set aside” and that Mineralogy pay Sino Iron’s legal costs.
Mineralogy directed The Australian to a third party media consultant, however the consultant could not be immediately reached.
