Legal chase hots up
Now Mensink located, liquidators set to escalate pursuit
LIQUIDATORS seeking to drag former Queensland Nickel director and CEO Clive Mensink home to face court will redouble efforts to serve him with legal papers, after News Corp Australia located the missing businessman living the high life in Bulgaria.
Stephen Parbery, of the PPB Advisory, which the Commonwealth appointed to recover money it paid to workers after Queensland Nickel went into liquidation in late 2016, says Mr Mensink has questions to answer.
“I think that his conduct appears to be that he’s evading answering questions important to our inquiries,” Mr Parbery said.
Mr Mensink, the nephew of Clive Palmer and former CEO of the now-defunct Gold Coast United A-League soccer franchise, is not subject of an extradition order but is on an Interpol watch list. He has an arrest warrant for failing to appear in court but would only be arrested if he landed back in Australia.
Mr Palmer is alleged to have had true control over Queensland Nickel. The Supreme Court action seeks to freeze $200 million of assets related to Mr Palmer and his companies, and to make him and Mr Mensink, along with others, accountable for the company’s debts.
Mr Parbery said that on the face of it, Mr Mensink was the remaining director and CEO of Queensland Nickel, which when it collapsed saw 800 Townsville workers lose their jobs. The Commonwealth stepped in to assist with redundancy payments.
“Queensland Nickel in our view had been trading while insolvent,” Mr Parbery said.
“Mr Mensink can answer our inquiries as to whether or not he was operating by himself or at the direction of others, including Mr Palmer. “Mr Mensink can also provide us with important background information leading up to the insolvency of Queensland Nickel, which will assist us with potential actions to recover money the Commonwealth of Australia paid out in employee entitlements.”
Mr Palmer, who was photographed outside his Gold Coast home yesterday, has questioned whether the man tracked down in Bulgaria is in fact his nephew.
“When I last saw my nephew he looked nothing like that, so I don’t think they are him at all,” Mr Palmer told ABC radio yesterday.
News Corp Australia tracked and photographed Mr Mensink, who has lost a significant amount of weight and now has a beard, to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.
Mr Palmer has denied knowledge of his nephew’s whereabouts, but Mr Mensink continues to be paid $16,000 every month from Mr Palmer’s flagship company, Mineralogy.
“There’s a lot of people who leave us who are entitled to their payments, I don’t interfere with that,” Mr Palmer said during Supreme Court proceedings in September.
The liquidators’ action involves personal claims against Mr Palmer for $219m and Mr Mensink for $121.5m for breaches of director’s duties and insolvent trading.
In November, a four-bedroom Gold Coast canal estate home owned by Mr Mensink was relisted on the rental market at $1,100 a week, which would further boost his income while he remains AWOL.
The real estate agency handing the rental declined to say whether it had been instructed by Mr Mensink to put the house of the market.
PPB had earlier engaged Bulgarian debt collectors to serve papers on Mr Mensink, who could not locate him. It will now have a better chance of formally serving him.