Big blow for Gina Rinehart’s children in the long legal battle over the family fortune

The WA Supreme Court has rejected the application by Gina Rinehart’s children, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, to access dozens of documents and correspondence dating back decades between their mother and her lawyers.

The siblings tried to obtain the documents to strengthen their case in a long-running feud with Ms Rinehart, in which they claim mining assets transferred by their iron ore pioneer grandfather Lang Hancock were theirs.

But Ms Rinehart and Hancock Prospecting claimed the documents were ‘privileged’ because they contained legal advice and were therefore ‘without prejudice’.

Ms. Rinehart’s children had argued that their mother and Hancock Prospecting could not maintain their privileges because they had not been established or waived.

In her decision, Judge Natalie Whitby said their claim of privilege could not be accepted on several grounds and was without merit. She also criticized the couple for taking time in court.

“The applications took six days to process,” she said.

‘The court book for the hearing consisted of just over 6,000 pages. Parties referred to approximately 160 authorities.

“It is an understatement to say that the resources spent on these privilege claims were completely disproportionate to the issues in dispute.”

The verdict was handed down in a long-running feud between some of Western Australia’s wealthiest mining families.

Last year, a case against Hancock Prospecting was heard in the WA Supreme Court for 51 days. The case was initiated by the families of Lang Hancock’s business partner Peter Wright and associate Don Rhodes.

The Wright family initiated legal action in 2010 to stake their claim for billions of dollars worth of mining royalties and assets against Hancock Prospecting and to claim a share of ownership and royalty rights against its Pilbara operations in the mines from Hope Downs.

In 2013, the Rhode family joined the action with a claim for 1.25 percent of royalties from Hope Downs’ production.

In 2016, Ms Rinehart’s own children joined the action, claiming a 50 per cent stake in the Hope Downs mines was theirs.

To complicate matters, attorneys for the Rinehart children have argued that the Wright and Rhodes parties’ claims were without merit.

They said Wright Prospecting had previously received the full legal value of its rights to Hope Downs, adding that the 1969 agreement did not in fact give DFD Rhodes any rights to any of Hope Downs’ tenements.

The case centered on royalties from Hancock’s Hope Downs mines and alleged agreements with other mining entities that the feuding families claimed were entitled to a share of those royalties.

A ruling has yet to be made in that case.