Clive Palmer's Queensland Nickel traded while insolvent
Outspoken billionaire businessman Clive Palmer has thwarted a liquidator's bid to claw back more than $100 million over his failed nickel refinery.
However, Justice Deborah Mullins found Queensland Nickel refinery traded insolvently in the days before administrators were called in to oversee the cash-strapped company.
Clive Palmer at a previous Queensland Nickel court hearing.Credit:Jono Searle/AAP
The judgment handed down in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Wednesday concludes the massive trial over the company's 2016 collapse.
It took more than two years for government-appointed liquidators of QN to bring the billionaire businessman to trial.
They were trying to claw back about $200 million owed to creditors when the Townsville refinery collapsed, leaving hundreds without a job.
Their 280-page claim lodged in June 2017, named 21 defendants, including a string of Mr Palmer's companies and his nephew Clive Mensink
The former federal MP settled most of the claims against him and the other defendants during the trial, including repaying $66 million in taxpayer funds used to pay sacked workers.
The deals worth about $130 million also secured the full recovery for the majority of unsecured creditors and settlement of an $88 million Aurizon claim for about $18 million.
Outside of court, Mr Palmer claimed the decision as a win and said he would now seek compensation from the liquidator.
"I'm considering a $50 million action against John Park and the overseas liquidator funder Vannin Capital Operations Limited,'' he said in a statement.
AAP