Criminal charges have been flagged against former Labor ministers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid and Mr Obeid's son Moses in the final report of the Independent Commission Against Corruption's Operation Jasper, which has been handed to the NSW parliament.
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The trio was found to have engaged in corrupt conduct in relation to decisions made by Mr Macdonald, the then resources minister, in relation to the granting of coal exploration leases in the Bylong Valley which enabled the Obeid family to make $30 million, with the prospect of earning at least $70 million more.
Criminal charges have also been flagged against one the nation's richest men, Travers Duncan, merchant banker Richard Poole, and John McGuigan and John Atkinson, both former partners of law firm Baker & McKenzie.
They were part of a consortium of investors in Cascade Coal, which won the right to explore for coal at Mount Penny, in the Bylong Valley near Mudgee.
ICAC Commissioner David Ipp has also referred evidence to the Crime Commission, the Australian Tax Office and the Australian Stock Exchange for further investigation.
In his final report, Commissioner Ipp found that Mr Macdonald expressly reopened a tender to enable Cascade Coal to put in a bid, which it subsequently won.
The Obeids and their associates had bought key properties at Mount Penny before the tender process. They then used the promise of access to their lands to negotiate a quarter ownership of Cascade Coal. The Obeid's 25 per cent stake was hidden through a complicated series of trusts and companies run by associates.
Known as the Magnificent Seven, Brian Flannery, Travers Duncan, former Baker & McKenzie partners John McGuigan and John Atkinson, boutique merchant banker Richard Poole and former RAMS Home Loans founder John Kinghorn, had invested in a private coal mining company Cascade Coal, which had won a government coal tender in 2009.
Also hidden in the consortium was mate to all - Greg Jones. Mr Jones, who once worked with Ian Macdonald in the late Frank Walker's office, told the commission that Mr Kinghorn had held his shares because it might have caused some political embarrassment for Mr Macdonald if it became public that his friend Mr Jones held shares in a company which had won a government tender presided over by his friend the mining minister.
The inquiry has heard that the big payday for the seven, who stood to make $60 million each, was to come in early 2011 when Cascade offered to share the spoils of its mining licence - for which it had paid only $1 million - by selling its only asset, the Mount Penny licence, to the stock exchange-listed White Energy.
Five Cascade investors, Mr McGuigan, Mr Flannery, Mr Duncan, Mr Atkinson and Mr Kinghorn, were also on the board of White Energy. The inquiry heard that none of the five informed White Energy that the Obeids had owned a quarter of Cascade.
Knowledge of the Obeids' involvement was likely to cause the government to cancel the licence and to order an inquiry, which would render Cascade worthless.
In order to sanitise the deal, the Obeids negotiated an exit payment of $60 million, which to date they have only received half.
The inquiry also heard that Mr Duncan used "weasel words" to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in relation to the Obeids' investment in Cascade.
In an intercepted call taped in April 2011, Mr Duncan is heard telling Mr Kinghorn: "We tried all sorts of weasel words and everything else [to hide the payment to the Obeids]." Mr Duncan went on to say, "we've had an enquiry from ASX . . . to break down the accounts" but "we can't answer it without disclosing the ... money went to CMG [Coal and Minerals Group]".
CMG was a private company of fellow Cascade investor Richard Poole, which was used to channel the $30 million through to the Obeids.
The inquiry heard that apart from their interest in the Mount Penny licence, the Obeids stood to make tens of millions of dollars out of a second mining venture.
Despite his experience of coal mining being limited to what he had seen on television, in 2009 mortgage broker Andrew Kaidbay's $1 company won a lucrative coal licence for Yarrawa (now known as Ferndale) in the Upper Hunter area.
Mr Kaidbay, 38, admitted at ICAC that he was representing the interests of the Obeids. But he denied acting as a front, instead he claimed his involvement was to "maintain their privacy."
The corruption findings by Commissioner Ipp now casts a serious doubt over Cascade Coal's desire to develop a potential billion-dollar mine at Mount Penny.
Last week Travers Duncan, 80, lost his last-ditch bid to have the High Court stop ICAC handing its report to the NSW Parliament. It is understood Mr Duncan and others involved in the Cascade bid intend to take legal action to challenge Commissioner Ipp's findings of corruption.
The group's conduct was described in the opening address by Geoffrey Watson, SC, as "corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps".