ICAC recommends cancelling mining licences corruptly awarded by disgraced former minister Ian Macdonald The ICAC says the process of awarding the mining licences by Ian Macdonald was so tainted by corruption they should be cancelled or expunged. MINING licences corruptly awarded by disgraced former resources minister Ian Macdonald should be cancelled, the corruption watchdog has recommended today. In the fourth and final report stemming from explosive hearings into Macdonald's decisions to allocate a mining tenement in an area where the Obeid family owned a farm and another to grant a licence to his friend John Maitland, outgoing ICAC Commissioner David Ipp has urged Premier Barry O'Farrell to "enact legislation" to cancel both licences. The Commission declared Macdonald corrupt in damning reports furnished to Parliament in July and August. In both findings, Mr Ipp said Macdonald had acted in breach of his ministerial duty by passing on confidential department information to Moses Obeid and by signing over a lucrative mining licence to a company run by his mate John Maitland. "The Commission says that the granting of the authorities to refer to an exploration licence, an assessment lease or a mining lease for Doyles Creek, Mount Penny and Glendon Brook (connected to the Obeid inquiry) was so tainted by corruption that these authorities should be expunged or cancelled," a summary of the findings says. The decision is expected to be met with anger by the company which took over the licence secured by John Maitland's company and later sold to them as part of a takeover of Doyles Creek Mining. NuCoal announced in October it would sue Macdonald in the District Court over his handling of the granting of the exploration licence. John Maitland leaves ICAC in Sydney after giving evidence regarding the Doyles Creek mine. The licence was issued by Macdonald to a company run by Maitland and a small group of entrepreneurs from Doyles Creek Mining around Christmas 2008. It wasn't until 2011 that the corruption watchdog started to investigate the circumstances of its granting. NuCoal took over Doyles Creek Mining in 2008. Earlier today the company requested an ASX trading halt as it waited for ICAC to deliver its findings, which is expected to remain in place until Friday. The company has maintained it is an innocent victim of the corruption scandal and so far no corrupt findings have made by ICAC against the company The ICAC report found circumstances that could establish that former Minister MacDonald had committed the common law crime of " 'misconduct in public office' ... and recommended that the circumstances be referred to the DPP to determine whether criminal charges should be laid," NuCoal chairman Gordon Galt wrote in a letter to shareholders. The elements of [the criminal offence] are materially similar to ... 'misfeasance in public office' [a civil offence] which, if proven, could be the basis for an entitlement to damages from the former Minister and the State of NSW. The NuCoal Board has therefore instructed its lawyers to commence preparation of the necessary documents required to initiate proceedings based on [this]. No charges have been laid against Macdonald, Maitland or former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid, who was also deemed corrupt by the ICAC report into the Mount Penny licence.