Obeid was accused of failing to disclose a family interest in the cafes while lobbying to have the leases renewed without a tender process taking place, to the financial benefit of his family.
Buildings in good locations on long leases may now be seeing increased demand, but the same cannot be said for retail properties, buildings in so-called "fringe locations" and development sites.
Ultimately, NSW Maritime altered its draft commercial lease policy to allow for direct negotiations with existing tenants and new leases were indeed granted to CQPL in 2009.
Icac found Obeid acted corruptly by lobbying former ministers and the Maritime Authority to extend the restaurant and cafe leases at Circular Quay.
Obeid is accused of making inducements to former Maritime NSW boss Steve Dunn in relation to family-owned cafe leases at Sydney's Circular Quay.
The government wanted to increase the $250,000 to $300,000 annual rent and to put the leases out to public tender when they expired in August 2005.
Former NSW minister Michael Costa wasn't interested in multimillion-dollar projects run by his department, but was focused on "crumby little" leases at Circular Quay, a corruption inquiry has heard.
Former senior maritime bureaucrat Zenon Michniewicz said the minister at the time, Scully, often told him that Obeid had spoken to him about the leases.
The interest revolved around rents and lengths of retail leases.
The release of two reports on three investigations, named Cabot, Meeka and Cyrus, on Thursday handed down the corruption findings relating to rural water licences in the Bylong Valley, a staff management company, and cafe leases in Sydney's Circular Quay respectively.
Operation Cabot related to rural water leases in the Upper Hunter region's Bylong Valley, and found Obeid used his position as an MP to "improperly influence" Dunn to use his own contacts at the Department of Water and Energy (DWE) to seek information on water licences in the Bylong Valley and Cherrydale Park, and influence an associated lender of the Obeids.
