Four prominent businessmen branded corrupt by the ICAC are set to have the label dropped in a significant about-turn from the watchdog.
Businessmen Travers Duncan, John McGuigan, Richard Poole and John Atkinson have been fighting to overturn corrupt findings made against them in Operation Jasper, the high-profile investigation into a coal venture linked to notorious ex-NSW Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid.
The corruption watchdog said in a statement on Thursday that it would consent to orders sought by the four men to set aside those corrupt conduct findings.
It is the first concrete consequence to flow from the recent High Court finding that the ICAC had "no power" to pursue a probe into high-ranking prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC.
The ruling was widely expected to have far-reaching implications for inquiries already completed by the ICAC and those not yet finalised.
After the High Court decision, ex-Cascade Coal directors Mr Duncan, Mr McGuigan, Mr Poole and Mr Atkinson told the ICAC they planned to ask the NSW Court of Appeal to declare the commission had strayed outside its jurisdiction when it found them to be corrupt.
RAMS Home Loans founder John Kinghorn, who was also declared corrupt by former ICAC Commissioner David Ipp, was successful in 2014 in having that finding quashed in the Supreme Court.
The ICAC has now abandoned its bid to have the finding reinstated on appeal.
"On the basis of its legal advice and in light of the High Court decision, the Commission accepts that it has no arguable basis or option to resist the orders sought," the ICAC said in a statement.
"It will therefore consent to orders setting aside the corrupt conduct findings made against Messrs Duncan, McGuigan, Poole and Atkinson, and to the dismissal of its summons in the Kinghorn proceedings."
The ICAC found former mining minister Ian Macdonald had rigged a 2008 tender process to grant a coal licence over land at Mount Penny in the Bylong Valley, which was owned by Obeid.
It enabled the Obeid family to make $30 million, with the prospect of pocketing at least $70 million more, the ICAC found.
Mr Kinghorn, Mr Duncan, Mr Poole, Mr McGuigan and Mr Atkinson were all involved with Cascade Coal, which took over the tenement in 2009.
The ICAC found they acted corruptly by withholding information about the Obeid family's link to the tenement when they were on the verge of a $500 million dollar takeover by White Energy.
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