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One of two contempt charges brought against Clive Palmer’s nephew was dismissed due to the behaviour of their lawyer, whose alleged theft of millions was recently described as an “egregious example of fraud” within the Queensland legal profession.
Sam Morris Iskander, former owner of Alexander Law, was accused of doctoring more than 800 barristers’ invoices to steal over $31 million from Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy and related entities.
Last December, the Queensland Supreme Court awarded summary judgment of about $29 million in Palmer’s favour.
In welcoming the decision, the billionaire mining magnate said Iskander’s conduct was a “profound breach of trust, made worse by the fact that Iskander was a practising solicitor”.
The Queensland Law Society said last August that Iskander surrendered his practising certificate and receivers had taken possession of Alexander Law, including trust money and client files.
In a Federal Court of Australia judgment published late last week, Iskander was said to be in Egypt and was refusing to return to Australia due to alleged financial or mental incapacity.
A warrant was allegedly issued for his arrest in February.
The judgment concerned Palmer’s nephew, Clive Theodore Mensink, the former director of Queensland Nickel.
Queensland Nickel, acquired by Palmer in 2009, collapsed in January 2016 with $226 million in liabilities, including employee entitlements. In early 2017, Mensink was ordered to attend before the Brisbane registry of the Federal Court for examination.
His failure to do so resulted in two charges of contempt of court.
The first charge, withdrawn by the register due to “inferences drawn” from Iskander’s conduct, alleged that Mensink failed to attend before a Federal Court judge in March 2017, conditional upon his solicitors providing him with a return plane ticket from Europe.
There was no “direct evidence” Mensink knew of these orders.
A letter from Mensink’s current lawyers informed the court that Iskander had given evidence that he had never spoken directly to Mensink, with instructions received through intermediaries.
“The inferential chain relied on by the registrar was that Iskander, as the solicitor acting for Mensink, who was present when the orders were announced, communicated them to Mensink, and that Mensink then instructed him to make an interlocutory application to set them aside,” Justice Darryl Rangiah said in his decision.
“Iskander’s evidence at the examination that he had never communicated directly with Mensink and was acting on instructions from intermediaries breaks that chain.
“The registrar therefore accepts that an inference that Mensink had no knowledge of the Dowsett Orders cannot be safely drawn.”
Mensink was found to have committed contempt on the second charge.
Citation: Registrar of the Federal Court of Australia v Mensink (Contempt) [2026] FCA 1470.
