A former Queensland Nickel refinery director who went on an overseas holiday after the business went broke and never came home has launched a second bid to have contempt charges thrown out of court.
Clive Palmer’s nephew Clive Mensink departed Australia in June 2016, less than two months after the refinery went into voluntary administration owning $30m to employees and $196m to other creditors.
His last publicly known location was Bulgaria where he was spotted by journalists in 2018 with then-girlfriend Gabriela Konstantinova.
After refusing to comply with repeated requests for him to attend the Federal Court for questioning in relation to the refinery’s collapse, Mr Mensink was hit with contempt of court charges and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Justice Darryl Rangiah last year dismissed an application Mr Mensink lodged to have the contempt proceeding dismissed on the grounds the Federal Court registrar had “no reasonable prospect of successfully prosecuting” him.
Mr Mensink lodged a Full Court appeal, which was due to be heard over two days in early March.
At a case management hearing on Friday, Justice Robert Bromwich told the court that “serious departures” from court-ordered document submission timetables had taken place.
Justice Bromwich said some submissions made on behalf of Mr Mensink had been filed 12 days late, along with other “unclear and incomplete” documxjmtzywents needed to move the appeal forward.
“Just to add to the woes from the court’s point of view, order 10 made in each proceeding on February 16 require the appeal books to be text searchable and include appropriate bookmarks. Both of those things weren’t done,” Justice Bromwich told the court.
“I’ve spent my time doing that myself, which as you can imagine does not improve my mood.
Mr Mensink’s barrister Peter Dunning QC said he “unreservedly apologised” on behalf of his client.
“The most expedient course would not be to abandon the present listing for the appeal,” Mr Dunning said.
“Until about half an hour ago, I didn’t envisage why the appeal shouldn’t be heard on that date (early March), because at least between the parties there was no issues that they hadn’t ventilated but plainly there is now.”
The prosecutor acting on behalf of the court registrar said the registrar was concerned that if the case was delayed it could “go on forever”.
“This matter has been going on for a really long time and has been fragmented in a profound sense, and so the registrar’s position, fundamentally, is that it ought be brought forward and moved forward given the importance of the underlying proceeding,” the prosecutor said.
“We are ready, willing and able to run the appeal.”
Justice Bromwich said there was “complexity that needs to be sorted through” in Mr Mensink’s case.
“There’s quite a few gateways in this case and depending which gate you go through depends what the next issue and the next argument and the next resolution is going to be,” Justice Bromwich told the court.
“It just struck me as being more complex than I first appreciated.”
Justice Bromwich ordered the parties to prepare more materials, vacated the March hearing dates and ordered new dates be set in May.
