Good enough for Gina Rinehart should be good enough for Palantir

Palantir is under pressure around the world but tolerated in Australia. Michael West against the double standards of regulators.

Palantir. It’s being rejected by Switzerland, major military and healthcare contracts are under pressure in the UK, politicians in the US are returning campaign donations, protesters are pushing for office changes. The controversial tech company is under fire around the world.

But that’s not the case in sleepy Australia.

Palantir, whose executives bragged about how their deadly software was killing people, was met with little resistance; It has signed government contracts with no public tenders, as well as corporate deals with Coles and the like.

Do our regulators care? Does ASIC care that Palantir has breached the Australian Corporations Law as described in these pages (below)?

Palantir is spying on everyone but its own misleading accounts

Founded by Zionist libertarian Peter Thiel, famous for proclaiming freedom and democracy incompatible – Palantir’s corporate fortunes have blossomed with the rise of Donald Trump, ICE’s surveillance activities, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where its technology has played a key role in targeting people for the IDF.

Meanwhile, Thiel and his 2IC, Alex Karp, have lobbied their way into government positions in that country with Australian assistance, in complete disregard of Australian law. Former Labor Secretary Mike Kelly.

To spell it out… ASIC

This year, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced: application priorities It involved financial reporting abuses, including the failure to submit audited financial reports in accordance with the Companies Act 2001.

This priority may be two decades too late for such a company. Oracle Corporation (with the dismal integration performance in this country) but better late than never.

ASIC’s announcement raises the question: Shouldn’t the corporate regulator prioritize enforcing financial reporting obligations on large companies, including companies owned by multinationals, every year?

Why not every year?

Companies owned by multinationals are known for their tendency to ‘restructure’ their financial affairs to evade and evade Australian income taxes. Regularly, routinely.

Why were financial reports audited?

Preparation and presentation of audited financial statements in accordance with the Companies Act is an important measure that reduces the risk of income tax evasion.

Firstly, auditors are required to report to ASIC if there are reasonable grounds to suspect a serious breach of the Corporations Act. For example, accounting fraud that facilitates income tax evasion.

Second, submitting the annual financial report no later than four months after the balance sheet date places a timestamp on the accounting of transactions, making it much more difficult to retroactively update invoices or get creative to potentially facilitate income tax evasion years later.

Are politicians aware of these fundamentals? Are these measures aimed at Australia’s tax base?

Accountants’ ‘ad hoc’ approach hides corporate secrets

After realizing common accounting fraud The Federal Parliament introduced legislation that would enable corporate tax entities owned by multinationals (described above over a decade ago) to prepare and lodge ‘General Purpose’ financial reports with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) without any requirement for the financial reports to be audited.

These unaudited financial reports may satisfy obligations under section 3CA of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 but no further.

External parties of multinational companies will view annual financial reports without audit assurance as low in reliability. In the case of the ATO and its work on multinational tax avoidance, these

Unaudited financial reports are likely to be virtually useless.

Palantir violations

So what exactly is the purpose of having unaudited annual financial reports in the public record? Why Parliament thinks unaudited annual financial reports of multinational companies should be taken seriously is a mystery.

It seems ASIC doesn’t take these unaudited financial reports seriously either. The ATO transmits unaudited financial reports to ASIC for publication on ASIC’s registers, which are accessible to the general public.

ASIC then uploads the unaudited financial reports, but without knowing which financial year they relate to. ASIC expects the public to play financial reporting roulette.

You have to pay $50 to find out what year it is.

let’s get it Unaudited financial report of Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd It is shown on ASIC’s register as 19 December 2025. Pay $50 to ASIC and you can find out which year the report is from.

So what is the point of having financial reports that have not been audited in a timely manner become public records?

The unaudited financial report of Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd as at 31 December 2024 was signed by a director on 21 November 2025; This was signed approximately 11 months after the balance sheet date, or almost 7 months more than permitted for an Australian company producing annual financial reports under the Corporations Act.

Maybe we should be grateful for small mercies. Unaudited financial report of Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd as at 31 December 2023

Completely missing from ASIC’s public register

The financial report of a multinational company is missing from the public registry. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Perhaps it was never prepared because Australian financial reporting was too onerous and too expensive for multinationals trying to minimize Australian taxes.

Lost, forgotten, evaporated, whatever

Perhaps the ATO forgot to communicate this to ASIC. Maybe ASIC has lost it. Perhaps ASIC’s enforcement priority for 2026 should be addressing regulatory incompetence rather than financial reporting abuse.

Surely it would be fair for our regulators to require audited financial reports from multinational companies?

The Federal Parliament appears to support duality in financial reporting requirements depending on whether a company doing business in Australia is Australian-owned or multinational.

If it’s Gina Rinehart, why not Palantir?

Australian-owned companies subject to annual financial reporting requirements in the Corporations Act do not have the luxury or cheapness to prepare and submit unaudited financial reports.

How is it fair that Australian-owned companies have to produce audited annual financial reports, but multinational companies doing business in Australia do not?

Directors of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd I learned the hard way from ASIC and that they must prepare and submit audited annual financial reports each year by a deadline not exceeding four months from the balance sheet date.

Directors of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd, which includes the rich and famous Gina Rinehart, may wonder why their Australian company is being pinged by ASIC for failing to submit audited annual financial reports by the deadline, at a time when multinationals such as Oracle Corporation and Palantir Technologies Australia appear to have a free pass to ASIC.

Be thankful once again for small mercies. Financial reporting abuse was at least briefly an enforcement priority for ASICs when they examined Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd in 2011.

Regulatory apartheid

According to directors of Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd, “The Company has no legal obligation to prepare financial statements in accordance with Australian Accounting Standards.”

In other words, the directors believe that the company is not obliged to prepare an audited annual financial report under the Companies Act. This belief is likely to be based on a misunderstanding of how the Companies Act applies.

ASIC Regulatory Guide 58 It sets out how the Corporations Act requirements for financial reporting apply to Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd as a small registered company.

The company is required to prepare and submit an audited annual financial report to ASIC unless: (1) the company is consolidated in financial statements filed with ASIC by a registered foreign company; or (2) the Company is not part of a larger group as defined in Art. ASIC Companies (Foreign Controlled Company Reports) Tool 2017/204.

It looks like Palantir is relying on the second exception. There is a document on ASIC’s Company public register dated 10 September 2010 titled “Notice of Decision Made by the Directors of a Small Pty Company Not Included in the Large Group (384)”.

Palantir .. “a small company”?

Since receiving this notice, ASIC appears to have accepted without question that the Company is not part of a larger group.

ASIC would have done better with multinational financial reporting under the Corporations Act if it had bothered to reconsider its own words in its 2017/204 Instrument. For the purpose of this Tool, a group should include:

(1) Organization (e.g. Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd);

(2) Any other entity that controls the entity operating in Australia during or at the end of the financial year (e.g. Palantir Technologies Inc.).

(3) Any other entity controlled by the other entity that controls the entity (for example, subsidiaries of Palantir Technologies Inc.)

But big contracts

Accordingly public informationPalantir Technologies Inc. has signed multimillion-dollar contracts with the Australian Department of Defense for software maintenance and support over the past decade.

For example, a contract worth $2,611,237.78 with a start date of July 31, 2013 and an end date of August 30, 2017.

These contracts will strongly indicate that Palantir Technologies Inc. operates in Australia and need to be included for the purpose of determining whether Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd is part of a larger group.

Accordingly yahoo!financePalantir Technologies Inc. generated consolidated revenue of $4.5 billion in the year to December 31, 2024.

Palantir Technologies Australia Pty Ltd is a small proprietary company and not part of a larger group you call ASIC? Really? How many billions in revenue would you need to make to change your mind?

And by the way, what is the size of the penalty for misleading the regulator?

Facebook did the same

Palantir Technolgies Inc. is not the first multinational to claim ownership of an Australian-controlled company that is not part of a larger group at the ASIC rodeo.

After Mark Zuckerberg is done declaring that the companies involved are innocent of causing social media addiction in children, he might also want to explain why he thinks so. Facebook Australia Pty Ltd Before 2014, I wasn’t part of a big group.

The Australian Parliament would do well to investigate how many other companies with multinational control fail to prepare and file annual financial reports audited under the Companies Act, claiming they are not part of a larger group.

It may also wish to investigate how such a complex situation arose under ASIC’s oversight and enforcement priorities. Major Australian-owned companies, if their owners are multinationals, deserve nothing less than a full explanation from ASIC as to why it has taken a different approach to financial reporting abuse.

Oracle and EY: 42 breaches of Companies Act and counting