Troubled political candidate Malcolm Turnbull, former co-Chairman of merchant bank Goldman Sachs and adviser to former FAI MD Rodney Adler, Malcolm Turnbull, has been asked to assist HIH Insurance liquidator Tony McGrath with his investigations.

The Australian Financial Review has reported that Mr Turnbull was asked about three weeks ago to talk to Sydney QC Neil Young as part of the liquidator’s examination. It is believed that Mr Turnbull co-operated with Mr Young when the two met two weeks ago.

In 1998 Mr Adler sought Mr Turnbull’s advice after HIH submitted a $300 million offer to take over FAI. Later that year, in a strategy dubbed Project Firelight, Goldman Sachs proposed to buy 60% of FAI’s publicly owned stock in an attempt to support Mr Adler’s bid to privatise the company.

Mr Turnbull pulled out of the deal, and two weeks later HIH bought FAI. The takeover is said to have cost the insurance giant about $690 million.

The HIH Royal Commission cleared Mr Turnbull and Goldman Sachs of any wrongdoing.