The New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has recommended former Labor ministers Ian Macdonald and Eddie Obeid face criminal charges over a coal-mining deal.
In a marathon inquiry that ran for months with hundreds of witnesses, Commissioner David Ipp investigated if the pair conspired to defraud the state over the granting of a multi-million dollar mining licence in the Bylong Valley.
The inquiry heard Mr Macdonald granted the lucrative Mount Penny coal mining licence over land owned by the Obeids in the Bylong Valley, and that the Obeids encouraged their friends to buy up land in the area and secretly hid their involvement in mining projects though complex company structures.
Today the ICAC found that both men acted corruptly and referred them to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The commission has also referred Eddie Obeid’s son Moses Obeid and businessmen Travers Duncan, John McGuigan, John Kinghorn, Richard Poole and John Atkinson to the DPP over Mount Penny.
