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<\/p>\nAustralia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, will likely find out on Wednesday whether she has fended off a legal claim to some of her highly lucrative Pilbara mines by the family of her late father’s former business partner, Peter Wright.<\/p>\n
Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Smith is expected to deliver her long-awaited judgement in the high-profile civil trial between the descendants of Western Australia’s iron ore pioneers.<\/p>\n
It follows months of argument between some of the most expensive lawyers in the country, 15,000 pages of submissions and intriguing insights into Australia’s iron ore dynasties.<\/p>\n
At stake was potentially billions of dollars in royalties and equity of the lucrative Hope Downs mines and tenements in the remote Hamersley Range.<\/p>\n
The Wright family had claimed it was owed these because of agreements made between Mr Wright and Mrs Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock, more than 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
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Peter Wright and Lang Hancock in the 1960s. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
But the legal showdown did not just pit Gina Rinehart against the descendants of Peter Wright.<\/p>\n
DFD Rhodes, the company founded by another 1960s businessman and miner Don Rhodes, also claimed a chunk of royalties from Hope Downs based on a 1969 agreement<\/a>.<\/p>\n Don Rhodes was a pioneer of the mining and transport industries in the Pilbara region. (Supplied)<\/p>\n The mammoth legal battle also drew in Mrs Rinehart’s children, with her two eldest John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart accusing the billionaire of trying to cut them out of a stake in the Hope Downs assets they say was left to them in a trust by their grandfather, Lang Hancock.<\/p>\n This led to evidence in court about a series of bitter family divisions, not only between Mrs Rinehart and her children, but also amongst the children and even between Mrs Rinehart and her late father.<\/p>\n Bianca Rinehart and John Hancock have claimed a stake in the Hope Downs assets they say were left to them by Lang Hancock. (ABC News: Briana Shepherd)<\/p>\n Decades-old agreements<\/p>\n The court case started in July 2023 when John Rowland KC, acting for the Wright family, began his opening address by saying Lang Hancock’s companies had breached their duties under a decades-old agreement over its iron ore assets in WA’s Pilbara region<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 1978, Mr Hancock and Mr Wright negotiated an agreement on how to divide and manage their mining assets, with amendments made several times in the 1980s.<\/p>\n The dispute is over the rights to royalties from the Hope Downs mining project. (AAP Image: Christian Sprogoe)<\/p>\n Wright Prospecting said it was improperly denied shares in three of the Hope Downs tenements and equity in three more Hope Down tenements, previously known as East Angelas.<\/p>\n The Wrights argued Hancock Prospecting should have been paying them half of a 2.5 per cent royalties deal with Rio Tinto \u2014 a claim that could amount to hundreds of millions, and potentially several billion dollars.<\/p>\n The Wrights thought they had “significant evidence” to prove their case when they produced a letter dating back to 1986 between Mrs Rinehart and Mr Hancock, where he purportedly refers to the East Angelas tenements of Hope Downs as jointly held by Wright Prospecting and Hancock Prospecting<\/a>.<\/p>\n How the first week of Gina Rinehart’s mining royalties trial unfolded<\/a><\/p>\n The business partnership between her Lang Hancock and Peter\u00a0Wright created billions \u2013 but the fractured relationship between the men’s heirs is\u00a0now playing out in the WA Supreme Court.<\/p>\n The court was also told about a meeting six weeks after Mr Wright’s death between Mr Hancock and Mr Wright’s children, where he referred to Hope Downs tenements as “these areas that belong to us both”.<\/p>\n Wrights ‘relinquished any right’<\/p>\n But lawyers for Hancock Prospecting argued not one of the billions of dollars in royalties from Hope Downs has been received on behalf of a partnership with Wright Prospecting<\/a>.<\/p>\n Top Sydney barrister Noel Hutley SC, who has previously represented billionaire James Packer and News Ltd, said Hancock Prospecting exploited Hope Downs after Wright Prospecting “relinquished any right it had to those areas” under a 1987 agreement.<\/p>\n Mr Hutley dismissed the 1986 letter, saying “it is, at its highest, of the most peripheral relevance in this case” because under the 1987 agreement, it was decided Hancock Prospecting could take up the East Angelas areas “for its own benefit”.<\/p>\n He also presented memos that he said proved the heirs of Peter Wright had known since 1987 they had no rights to the iron ore tenements.<\/p>\n Family feuds<\/p>\n Aside from the battle over lucrative mines and royalties, the case featured sensational twists and turns that provided a rare insight into the inner workings of Australia’s richest family.<\/p>\n The court was told Mrs Rinehart tried to have her stepmother, Rose Porteous, deported and had also referred to her in “highly degrading ways”, including as an “oriental concubine”.<\/p>\n Rose Porteous worked as a maid for Lang Hancock before marrying him in 1985. (ABC Archives)<\/p>\n Ms Porteous, who is from the Philippines, was originally employed by Mrs Rinehart as a housekeeper for her father after her mother’s death.<\/p>\n His daughter’s actions prompted fury from Lang Hancock, who accused her of being “disloyal” to the family and unfit to hold office in Hancock Prospecting.<\/p>\n Mrs Rinehart, through her legal team, accused her father of breaching his fiduciary duties by siphoning money to himself under pressure from Ms Porteous to fund her “luxurious lifestyle”<\/a>.<\/p>\n Children involved<\/p>\n The family divisions were further exposed when John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart became embroiled in a legal dispute with their mother over the ownership of Hancock Prospecting and claims to Hope Downs tenements<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e65baff6499b4e5aed6851227f709abe.jpeg\")
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