Billionaire Clive Palmer and his company Mineralogy are suing the Western Australian government for nearly $30 billion in a row over a long-stalled …
(AP Photo/Paul Jeffers, File)Connect with the definitive source for global and local news CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian court on Thursday rejected a newspaper publisher’s appeal against Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush’s $2.9 million Australian dollars ($2 million) payout for defamation.Three Federal Court judges ruled that articles published by Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2017 conveyed the imputation that Rush was a pervert and that the trial judge had correctly included the actor’s loss of earnings in calculating damages.The Australian actor, who turns 69 on July 6, did not attend the Sydney court to hear the verdict.News Corp.-owned Nationwide News appealed trial judge Michael Wigney’s ruling last year that Rush was defamed by newspaper reports saying he had been accused of inappropriate behavior by actor Eryn Jean Norvill. The Crown Australian Poker Championship, or the 'Aussie Millions' as it became known, moved to January in 2001, attracting 40 entrants with a $5,000 buy in for a prize pool of $200,000. Mineralogy and International Minerals what might be tens of billions of dollars,” Mr Quigley said.The parliament was told the 2012 BSIOP proposal was to mine, process and export 24 million tonnes a year of iron ore concentrate with first shipments planned for 2016.Mr Quigley said Mr Palmer, Mineralogy and International Minerals had intended to sell BSIOP to Chinese government-owned corporations and even secured a letter of intent from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of China's largest banks, expressing willingness and interest in financing the project.Mr McGowan has branded Mr Palmer a menace and also backed CITIC in its row with Mr Palmer over the future of Sino Iron magnetite project in the Pilbara.Follow the topics, people and companies that matter to you.John Mulcahy may have picked up the virus at a fashionable Sydney restaurant the night actor Tom Hanks was there in early March.Former age discrimination commissioner Susan Ryan says the big four consulting firm should drop the mandatory retirement requirement.Singapore's Keppel Capital is homing in on a $300 million office building in Sydney's Macquarie Park.The gas led COVID-19 recovery will be handicapped by high east coast gas prices says Ross Garnaut, who has taken his ZEN Energy back from Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty Steel.Scott Morrison should follow Bill Clinton's lead and create a council of expert economic advisers to put reform at the forefront of the government's agenda.The write-downs on LNG projects show the risks confronting capital-intensive endeavours, and the need to reduce the political risks exposed by the latest Narrabri inquiry.On an explosive day of hearings for a parliamentary inquiry into Victoria's COVID-19 response, the Victorian premier's evidence has been contradicted by the Morrison government.Daniel Andrews has locked down Victoria indefinitely. Billionaire Clive Palmer and his company Mineralogy are suing the Western Australian government for nearly $30 billion in a row over a long-stalled iron ore project that has the potential to leave the state in financial ruins.The state’s Labor government is so worried about the whopping damages claims, revealed under parliamentary privilege on Tuesday night, that it has introduced legislation intended to shield it from any payout.The damages claims relate to a project known as Balmoral South once slated for tenements controlled by Mineralogy in WA’s iron ore-rich Pilbara region.Attorney General John Quigley told parliament the emergency legislation was being introduced to “prevent potentially dire consequences for the state", which is already facing a High Court showdown with Mr Palmer over its hard border closures designed to cocoon WA from the COVID-19 pandemic.A spokesman for Mr Palmer said he could not comment on the damages matter because it was the subject of confidential commercial arbitration.The dispute has its roots back in 2012 and 2013, when Mineralogy submitted development proposals for the Balmoral South Iron Ore Project (BSIOP), and a related state agreement between the WA government and Mineralogy along with other parties.The proposals were initially rejected or had a raft of conditions applied to them by the then Liberal-Nationals government.Mineralogy reacted by taking the matter to arbitration under the terms of its state agreement and has won almost every round in that process so far as the matter comes to a head before former High Court judge Michael McHugh.Mr Quigley said Mineralogy had made multiple damages claims against the state over rejection of its mining proposals and attempts to put conditions around the proposals, and that they totalled almost $30 billion.“Obviously, if the claimants were to succeed in their damages claim at a level anywhere close to the amount sought, this would have dire financial consequences for the state of WA and Western Australians,” he said.Mr Quigley revealed the government was nervous about the outcome of arbitration proceedings before Mr McHugh, who has made rulings in favour of Mr Palmer, Mineralogy and related-party International Minerals over the course of the dispute.“On 26 June 2020, Mr McHugh ordered that there be a hearing of the matter for 15 days commencing 30 November 2020, to enable him to consider his decision over the Christmas and New Year period, with a view to providing an award in the New Year,” he said.“While there are very sound and respectable defences available to the claim of Mr Palmer, Mineralogy and International Minerals, the State has been unsuccessful in the past in dealing with Mineralogy's claims relating to the August 2012 proposals, and so a successful defence of the claim is not guaranteed.”A key clause in the emergency legislation introduced by Mr Quigley to head off a massive payout seeks to “terminate any arbitration the state, Mineralogy and International Minerals are party to and which concerns a disputed matter”.“It would be fiscally irresponsible for this claim to continue and for the state and Western Australians to be exposed to the risk, or even possibility of a risk, of having to pay Mr Palmer.
(AP Photo/Paul Jeffers, File)Connect with the definitive source for global and local news CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An Australian court on Thursday rejected a newspaper publisher’s appeal against Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush’s $2.9 million Australian dollars ($2 million) payout for defamation.Three Federal Court judges ruled that articles published by Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2017 conveyed the imputation that Rush was a pervert and that the trial judge had correctly included the actor’s loss of earnings in calculating damages.The Australian actor, who turns 69 on July 6, did not attend the Sydney court to hear the verdict.News Corp.-owned Nationwide News appealed trial judge Michael Wigney’s ruling last year that Rush was defamed by newspaper reports saying he had been accused of inappropriate behavior by actor Eryn Jean Norvill. The Crown Australian Poker Championship, or the 'Aussie Millions' as it became known, moved to January in 2001, attracting 40 entrants with a $5,000 buy in for a prize pool of $200,000. Mineralogy and International Minerals what might be tens of billions of dollars,” Mr Quigley said.The parliament was told the 2012 BSIOP proposal was to mine, process and export 24 million tonnes a year of iron ore concentrate with first shipments planned for 2016.Mr Quigley said Mr Palmer, Mineralogy and International Minerals had intended to sell BSIOP to Chinese government-owned corporations and even secured a letter of intent from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of China's largest banks, expressing willingness and interest in financing the project.Mr McGowan has branded Mr Palmer a menace and also backed CITIC in its row with Mr Palmer over the future of Sino Iron magnetite project in the Pilbara.Follow the topics, people and companies that matter to you.John Mulcahy may have picked up the virus at a fashionable Sydney restaurant the night actor Tom Hanks was there in early March.Former age discrimination commissioner Susan Ryan says the big four consulting firm should drop the mandatory retirement requirement.Singapore's Keppel Capital is homing in on a $300 million office building in Sydney's Macquarie Park.The gas led COVID-19 recovery will be handicapped by high east coast gas prices says Ross Garnaut, who has taken his ZEN Energy back from Sanjeev Gupta's Liberty Steel.Scott Morrison should follow Bill Clinton's lead and create a council of expert economic advisers to put reform at the forefront of the government's agenda.The write-downs on LNG projects show the risks confronting capital-intensive endeavours, and the need to reduce the political risks exposed by the latest Narrabri inquiry.On an explosive day of hearings for a parliamentary inquiry into Victoria's COVID-19 response, the Victorian premier's evidence has been contradicted by the Morrison government.Daniel Andrews has locked down Victoria indefinitely. Billionaire Clive Palmer and his company Mineralogy are suing the Western Australian government for nearly $30 billion in a row over a long-stalled iron ore project that has the potential to leave the state in financial ruins.The state’s Labor government is so worried about the whopping damages claims, revealed under parliamentary privilege on Tuesday night, that it has introduced legislation intended to shield it from any payout.The damages claims relate to a project known as Balmoral South once slated for tenements controlled by Mineralogy in WA’s iron ore-rich Pilbara region.Attorney General John Quigley told parliament the emergency legislation was being introduced to “prevent potentially dire consequences for the state", which is already facing a High Court showdown with Mr Palmer over its hard border closures designed to cocoon WA from the COVID-19 pandemic.A spokesman for Mr Palmer said he could not comment on the damages matter because it was the subject of confidential commercial arbitration.The dispute has its roots back in 2012 and 2013, when Mineralogy submitted development proposals for the Balmoral South Iron Ore Project (BSIOP), and a related state agreement between the WA government and Mineralogy along with other parties.The proposals were initially rejected or had a raft of conditions applied to them by the then Liberal-Nationals government.Mineralogy reacted by taking the matter to arbitration under the terms of its state agreement and has won almost every round in that process so far as the matter comes to a head before former High Court judge Michael McHugh.Mr Quigley said Mineralogy had made multiple damages claims against the state over rejection of its mining proposals and attempts to put conditions around the proposals, and that they totalled almost $30 billion.“Obviously, if the claimants were to succeed in their damages claim at a level anywhere close to the amount sought, this would have dire financial consequences for the state of WA and Western Australians,” he said.Mr Quigley revealed the government was nervous about the outcome of arbitration proceedings before Mr McHugh, who has made rulings in favour of Mr Palmer, Mineralogy and related-party International Minerals over the course of the dispute.“On 26 June 2020, Mr McHugh ordered that there be a hearing of the matter for 15 days commencing 30 November 2020, to enable him to consider his decision over the Christmas and New Year period, with a view to providing an award in the New Year,” he said.“While there are very sound and respectable defences available to the claim of Mr Palmer, Mineralogy and International Minerals, the State has been unsuccessful in the past in dealing with Mineralogy's claims relating to the August 2012 proposals, and so a successful defence of the claim is not guaranteed.”A key clause in the emergency legislation introduced by Mr Quigley to head off a massive payout seeks to “terminate any arbitration the state, Mineralogy and International Minerals are party to and which concerns a disputed matter”.“It would be fiscally irresponsible for this claim to continue and for the state and Western Australians to be exposed to the risk, or even possibility of a risk, of having to pay Mr Palmer.