I was among those who first reported on Eddie Obeid’s dealings in the NSW Upper Hunter. Monday’s supreme court verdict is vindication for many who investigated him

“If it is corruption, then it is corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps,” counsel assisting the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption, Geoffrey Watson SC, declared theatrically at the opening of the inquiry into the grant of a coal licence at Mount Penny in 2012.

A decade later, the NSW supreme court has found the grant of the controversial coal exploration licence in the Bylong Valley was the result of a criminal conspiracy that resulted in the Obeid family making at least $30m.