Cascade Coal challenges ICAC report in wake of Cunneen ruling

Perth : A mining company that secured a lucrative coal exploration licence over the Obeid family’s farm is pushing ahead with a legal challenge to a report which led to the licence being cancelled, in an apparent bid to win compensation from the state government.Cascade Coal has asked the NSW Court of Appeal to strike down an Independent Commission Against Corruption report which found the company’s Mount Penny exploration licence was “so tainted by corruption” it should be cancelled.The company has previously valued the licence at $500 million.Former Krispy Kreme Australia chief executive John McGuigan.The court heard on Monday that the ICAC has agreed to orders overturning corruption findings against four of Cascade Coal’s founding investors, including mining mogul Travers Duncan.Advertisement. Mr Duncan and his associates – former Krispy Kreme Australia chief executive John McGuigan, businessman John Atkinson and investment banker Richard Poole – were found to have acted corruptly by concealing the involvement of the Obeid family in the coal tenement.But the High Court ruling in the commission’s battle with Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen, SC, made those findings untenable.Three Court of Appeal judges will convene in private to make the orders overturning the findings against the men, while the challenge to the report on Cascade Coal’s licence will be heard in mid-June.The ICAC has agreed to orders declaring the findings against the men were “not made according to law and [are] a nullity”.