State Gas is mentioned in the statement of claim in the bios of,...

State Gas is mentioned in the statement of claim in the bios of, Mr Tony Bellas. It may even be mentioned in court as part of the current biographies of Mr Philip St Baker and Mr Jonathan Stretch.

It should be noted that Mr Philip St Baker, Mr Tony Bellas, Mr Jonathan Stretch and Mr Trevor St Baker have all applied for and been granted privilege not to respond to numerous allegations on the basis they may incriminate themselves in a criminal offence or civil penalty proceeding, and that there is a real and appreciable risk of any response leading to a train of investigation and potential prosecution by ASIC or Qld’s Crime and Corruption Commission (in respect of the sham transactions with Stanwell, way before Mr Jonathan’s Stretch commenced at ERM Power Ltd. The judgement referred to above describes the reasons why they have been granted that by Justice Susan Brown and provides a useful summary on the allegations and potential offences breached and the consequences if those allegations if proven in a court of law. Mr Philip St Baker has claimed and been granted privilege on slightly more than 70% of the nearly 600 allegations in the 610 page Statement of Claim.

The others have claimed anywhere from 20% to 60% excluding those allegations where they will claim no admission on the basis they don’t know if it’s true or not.Mr Philip St Baker and Mr Trevor St Bakers defences were lodged with the Supreme Court registry on 1 June 2023 and are now public court documents on the record for the public to purchase a copy of and are predominantly the claim of privilege as granted, along with a substantial range of no admission that they have not been able to make reasonable enquiries in the time available to determine if the allegation is true or false, even though they have had the latest statement of claim for 8 months, with the majority of facts having been in the original document lodged nearly 3 years ago.

Former State Gas director Mr Ian Paton is also mentioned in the statement of claim as a witness as he workeeed closely with Mr Quinlan at ERM Gas Pty Ltd and on secondment with Mr Quinlan at Empire Oil & Gas (ASX: EGO now delisted) after Mr Quinlan managed a project, which involved purchasing a 10% stake in Empire and lodging a s249d notice to remove 3 of the 4 directors at an EGM, Empire was also ERM Gas’ JV partner, this 249D was wholly successful, and Mr Quinlan was then asked to be seconded to Empire as its Acting CEO, which he did for a period of 6 months as well as its Company Secretary and initiated changes and short term funding, which allowed Empire to enhance a well by accessing a new zone, Mr Paton was absolutely critical to and instrumental in this project, in record time, which provided approximately $20in revenue a year for the incoming CEO, otherwise Empire would have folded, ultimately in late 2017, under the new CEO and the Board of Empire still chaired by Mt Tony Iannello, the company went into administration and was ultimately delisted with shareholders losing over $100million + in investments, the majority which can not be claimed as a tax loss as the company went through administration and is now delisted and dormant, hence no ability to sell the shares or claim a loss in a liquidation.


Mr Paton may be called to the witness stand to give testimony. There are no allegations against Mr Paton on any wrongdoing.

Mr Quinlan consulted to Empire for approximately 5.5 months before resigning because of issues which permeated Empire through ERMs director Mr Tony Iannello, who was Chairman of Empire and also a defendant in the proceedings, and ERMs control through their 10% shareholding. These matters are contained in the statement of claim.

A letter mentioned in the statement of claim sent by ERMs lawyers at the time (December 2018) also references a now former Novonix Director, but current State Gas director, Mr Gregory Baynton, and he may be called to the witness stand to give testimony, anyone who may have attended the 2020 Novonix AGM will remember Mr Gregory Baynton getting aggressive with Mr Quinlan at the end of that meeting and yelling at him and banning him from all future meetings, which is illegal and which maybe an offence under the same provisions in the legal proceedings.

it should also be noted that Mr Quinlan previously worked at Queensland Gas Company, reporting directly to Managing Director, Mr Richard Cottee, Mr Quinlan worked there from approximately July 2005 to June 2007 (before leaving and commencing with ERM Power Pty Ltd as it was then), as acting CFO until a new CFO could be recruited (after having declined the full time CFO role) and instead taking on the role of Manager Strategic Planning and was heavily involved in the defence of QGC from the Santos’ takeover in late 2006/early 2007 and managed and compiled the Target Statement and related documents and ensuring QGCs financial survival during that time through his involvement in both raising debt financing and a $60m RENOUNCEABLE entitlement raising to ensure all shareholders could participate and gain money by selling their entitlements if they were unable to take them up at the time, rather than lose out completely, and then was heavily involved in the negotiation of the investment by AGL in early 2007 which injected approximately $327m into QGC for a roughly 27% stake and which was approved at an EGM with a very lengthy EGM Notice of Meeting and Exploratory Memorandum equivalent to most IPO Prospectus, if not bigger, and which ultimately led the company from a 60c share price at 1 July 2006 to a ~$1.50+ share price investment by AGL, which then led to a share price of ~$3.00 by 30 June 2007, a 5x multiplier in one year driven by the QGC team of directors (led by Mr Richard Cottee) his strong executive team and QGCs 100+ employees at the time, a true team collective working together. A Market value increase from ~$270million to ~$3billion in that one year, prior to the $5billion acquisition by BG in October 2008.

Mr Quinlan also worked for a short time with current State Gas CEO, Mr Doug McAlpine, where Mr McAlpine did a short ~4 month consulting stint in between full time roles at ERM Power Ltd in the finance section in 2008.