{"id":625520,"date":"2026-04-23T10:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/625520\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:42:11","slug":"fight-over-legal-costs-in-gina-rineharts-hope-downs-judgement-begins-in-perth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/625520\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight over legal costs in Gina Rinehart’s Hope Downs judgement begins in Perth"},"content":{"rendered":"

A legal wrangle about what costs mining heiress Gina Rinehart is liable for following last week’s judgement in an epic court battle over lucrative iron ore assets in WA’s Pilbara has begun in Perth today.<\/p>\n

In another expensive sitting of the long running saga, at least 20 lawyers were again present in WA’s Supreme Court to make their cases to Justice Jennifer Smith about why their clients deserved to be awarded maximum costs, while Mrs Rinehart’s lawyers argued for the minimisation of their liabilities.<\/p>\n

Last week Justice Smith found Mrs Rinehart’s company Hancock Prospecting (HPPL) would have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in mining royalties to the companies of her father’s business partners.<\/p>\n

\"Gina<\/p>\n

Gina Rinehart is Australia’s richest person.\u00a0 (AAP: Dave Hunt)<\/p>\n

Her father, iron ore pioneer Lang Hancock, had partnered with Peter Wright as far back as the 1930s and together the men helped lay the foundations of WA’s lucrative iron ore industry, along with Don Rhodes.<\/p>\n

Gina Rinehart court case explainer<\/a><\/p>\n

The blockbuster court ruling over mining tenements worth billions of dollars in WA’s iron ore rich Pilbara is the culmination of a complicated legal battle spanning more than a decade that has pitted family against family and siblings against each other.<\/p>\n

While awarding Wright Prospecting and DFD Rhodes the rights to a share of the royalties from some of the Hope Downs tenements, which HPPL has developed in conjunction with mining giant Rio Tinto, Justice Smith also rejected Wright’s ownership claim.<\/p>\n

That claim, if upheld, would have dwarfed the royalties payments, which HPPL says will only amount to the “far less significant” sum of $18 million a year \u2014 $14 million for Wright and $4 million for Rhodes.<\/p>\n

But those amounts are likely to be contested by Wright and Rhodes in upcoming hearings.<\/p>\n

Financial clarity<\/p>\n

Today lawyers for both companies argued that they needed to get a clear financial picture from HPPL of the value of the royalties they are owed, including the way they have been calculated and the amount of iron ore sales involved.<\/p>\n

Interest payments were also a hot topic of argument, with Rhodes lawyer Jeremy Stoljar SC arguing it should be calculated at six per cent per year.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Hope Downs iron ore mine in WA’s Pilbara was at the centre of the legal fight.\u00a0 (AAP Image: Christian Sprogoe)<\/p>\n

But HPPL lawyer James Hutton SC disputed this, claiming commercial rates of interest averaged out over the period royalties were owed, would be “significantly less” at about 2.8 per cent.<\/p>\n

“No one lends money at that rate,” Justice Smith interjected as Mr Hutton was making his argument.<\/p>\n

Split decision as Gina Rinehart, Wright family both claim legal wins<\/a><\/p>\n

Gina Rinehart is dealt a blow, with a court finding the family of her father’s former business partner has the right to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties from lucrative Pilbara mining assets.<\/p>\n

Also in contention are damages the Wright camp claims it is owed because HPPL breached the agreement made decades ago between Wright and Hancock, by not paying royalties on some of the tenements the men pegged.<\/p>\n

And Wright lawyer Julie Taylor SC said HPPL should also pay the cost of the accounting process it had been forced to undergo as part of the proceedings, describing Mrs Rinheart’s company as a “contract breacher”.<\/p>\n

Justice Smith is likely to make a series of orders as a result of today’s hearing, which are likely to be published next week and will spell out the extent of HPPL’s liabilities to Wright and Rhodes as a result of the judgement.<\/p>\n

It is not yet known if any of the parties will appeal last week’s judgement, which came after 15 years of legal battles, 53 days of hearings and spanned more than 1,600 pages.<\/p>\n

The hearing continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A legal wrangle about what costs mining heiress Gina Rinehart is liable for following last week’s judgement in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[129759,64,63,294825,99,294828,60501,294824,97990,294823,132322,31861,294826,294827,73846,178753,186440,6827,46,86,12174,21879,294829,294830,25962,14665,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-625520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-angela-bennett","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bianca-rinehart","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-dfd-rhodes","14":"tag-gina-rinehart","15":"tag-gina-rinehart-trial","16":"tag-hancock-prospecting","17":"tag-hancock-trial","18":"tag-heiress","19":"tag-high-court","20":"tag-hope-downs","21":"tag-hope-welker","22":"tag-iron-ore","23":"tag-john-hancock","24":"tag-lang-hancock","25":"tag-mining","26":"tag-perth","27":"tag-perth-news","28":"tag-peter-wright","29":"tag-pilbara","30":"tag-rinehart-children","31":"tag-rinehart-court-case","32":"tag-wa","33":"tag-wa-courts","34":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}