Federal Court found Campbell’s $25m loss claim belonged to his companies, not him
The Federal Court has exposed another fault line in Adrian Campbell’s offshore business network: the claim that he personally lost $25 million in contracts. Justice Derrington found the loss figure was not Campbell’s personal loss at all, but was sustained by his companies. In the context of Campbell’s unsuccessful attempt to preserve urgent injunctions, that distinction mattered.
The finding came in Campbell v McIntyre (No 2) [2026] FCA 1279, where the court was asked to revisit interim orders Campbell had obtained after complaining of allegedly defamatory reporting. The proceedings did not determine the substance of Campbell’s defamation and consumer law claims, which remain on foot, but they did lead to sharp judicial criticism of the way material was presented to the court.
A loss claim the court did not accept at face value
According to the reasons, Campbell had given the impression that he personally had suffered $25 million in lost contracts. Justice Derrington found that he had substantially downplayed his criminal history and also led the court to believe he was an Australian resident when he was not. The court said the non-disclosures were “exceptionally serious” and discharged the injunctions.
The result was a severe costs order: Campbell was required to pay 80 per cent of the other side’s costs on an indemnity basis, a sanction reserved for conduct the court regards as especially serious. In practical terms, the court was not persuaded that Campbell’s framing of the alleged loss was reliable enough to support the interim relief he had obtained.
That issue sits against a wider public record. Campbell later corrected his affidavit and admitted prior convictions, including 2012 fraud convictions, five 2015 convictions at Southport Magistrates Court linked to International Solar Solutions, and 2018 false or misleading conduct convictions involving Eco Boss Pty Ltd. Those matters had already formed part of the public record before the 2026 Federal Court dispute.
Offshore structure, investor marketing and disputed losses
Campbell is Thailand-based and operates through Kinnara Capital, Kinnara Asia and Kinnara Limited, with marketing directed at Australian investors seeking exposure to South-East Asian property. The corporate structure matters because loss claims can quickly blur between personal harm, company losses and investor outcomes when businesses are run offshore.
The Daily Mail reported in October 2026 that Campbell’s network was linked to a stalled Balinese villa development that had reportedly taken $5.2 million from Australian investors. Investors have said they were kept in the dark about progress, and in June 2026 some structures were torn down after reportedly being built in the wrong location. No charges have been laid over that project.
“The omissions were exceptionally serious,” Justice Derrington found, before overturning the gag orders and ordering indemnity costs.
Campbell’s response has been that his convictions are a matter of public record, that he never sought to hide them, and that his first affidavit was incomplete rather than intentionally false. He says he regrets the error, respects the court’s finding, and maintains that Kinnara acted only as sales and marketing agent for the Marina Bay City project, did not hold purchaser funds, and lodged its own report with Indonesian police in November 2025.
For investors, the significance of the Federal Court’s finding is narrower but important: a claimed multimillion-dollar loss does not automatically mean personal loss, and in offshore ventures that distinction may be critical to how courts assess credibility. In Campbell’s case, the court found the claimed $25 million was a company issue, not a personal one, and that his affidavit did not tell the whole story.
The broader pattern remains visible across the public record: regulatory pressure, disputed conduct, relocation offshore, and a continuing stream of investor-related controversy. The Federal Court’s finding over the $25 million claim has now joined that record.