Two small shareholders are suing collapsed cobalt miner Jervois Global in a Texas court to halt a winding up that will erase hundreds of millions of dollars of investor capital.
Officials in Beijing said they would immediately halt the sales of gallium, germanium, antimony, and other minerals to the US as a major trade war brews.
The electricity and gas giant will not proceed with a project in the Hunter, which had been shortlisted for funding as part of Labor’s $2 billion incentive scheme.
Sanjeev Gupta’s empire is showing further signs of distress as creditor defaults tick up against his other businesses in Australia, InfraBuild and Tahmoor coal.
The sharemarket operator faces a maximum fine of more than $500 million if found by the Federal Court to have made misleading statements about the project.
The East Asian nation is gradually increasing its exports of energy technology to diversify its economic base and strengthen its geopolitical influence.
Local miners are torn between their dominant customer and investor over two decades, and the lure of subsidies from the US, Australia’s biggest defence ally.