Lang Hancock believed the companies that comprised his mining empire were simply an extension of himself, and he wrongly shifted ownership of valuable assets in a scheme to avoid scrutiny from his daughter Gina Rinehart, her lawyers claim.

Lawyers for Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting told the WA Supreme Court on Monday that her father had flagrantly breached his own fiduciary duties while keeping his only daughter in the dark during the 1980s.