{"id":876610,"date":"2026-09-01T20:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T20:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/876610\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T20:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T20:48:24","slug":"no-penalties-for-chris-ellison-mineral-resources-as-asic-ends-alleged-tax-evasion-probe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/876610\/","title":{"rendered":"No penalties for Chris Ellison, Mineral Resources as ASIC ends alleged tax evasion probe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Western Australian mining billionaire Chris Ellison and his flagship company will face “no action” from the federal corporate regulator, which had been investigating Mineral Resources for alleged tax evasion.<\/p>\n

Mr Ellison and the Perth-based iron ore and lithium miner were under scrutiny from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) after an internal review found he had failed to disclose a financial interest he held in an offshore company that sold almost $4 million worth of equipment to MinRes in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

That company was based in the British Virgin Islands, a territory where companies do not pay income tax.<\/p>\n

In April 2025, the mining boss apologised and announced he would step down from his post as managing director,<\/a> however there has been no announcement of his successor.<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

ASIC today confirmed its investigation was finished, and that it would not impose penalties or other enforcement actions against Mr Ellison or MinRes.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mineral Resources’ headquarters in Osborne Park, eight kilometres north west of Perth’s CBD.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“ASIC assessed the available evidence, applicable law, prospects of success and broader public interest considerations before determining that no further regulatory action was warranted,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Public apology<\/p>\n

Separately, investors have filed a class action against Mr Ellison and MinRes<\/a> in Victoria’s Supreme Court over the alleged tax scandal.<\/p>\n

In late 2024, Mineral Resources’ board ordered Mr Ellison to pay $8.8 million in financial penalties, and decided not to pay almost $10 million in planned executive remuneration.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mr Ellison has apologised for the incident. (Supplied: MinRes)<\/p>\n

The board’s internal investigation also found company funds had been used to benefit entities in which Mr Ellison’s daughter had an interest, without Mineral Resources’ knowledge.<\/p>\n

Mr Ellison told shareholders at the time he was deeply sorry for his actions.<\/p>\n

MinRes boss addresses angry shareholders on tax investigation<\/a><\/p>\n

Chris Ellison says an investigation into a corporate governance scandal gripping the mining company he founded almost 20 years ago is a “dark cloud over [his] life”.<\/p>\n

“I hate what I’ve done,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I made an error of judgement with reporting of personal tax. I deeply regret the impact this has had on our business and our people.”<\/p>\n

Mr Ellison had also admitted to shareholders he had operated overseas entities and not disclosed revenue from these ventures.<\/p>\n

But he said the matter had since been settled, and all outstanding tax, penalties and interest had now been paid back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Australian mining billionaire Chris Ellison and his flagship company will face “no action” from the federal corporate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5799,64,63,70900,446542,99,362745,54519,6827,46,86,162154,25962,45],"class_list":["post-876610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asic","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-securities-and-investments-commission","tag-british-virgin-islands","tag-business","tag-chris-ellison","tag-mineral-resources","tag-mining","tag-perth","tag-perth-news","tag-tax-evasion","tag-wa","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}