A push for a genetic audit of a bitterly divided native title group has reached the courts, threatening to delay and complicate BHP’s dream of expanding Australia’s best copper district.

When Maxwell Reid asked the South Australian Supreme Court to freeze the bank accounts of the Kokatha Aboriginal Corporation last month, he was escalating a dispute that has simmered for years within the community that has exclusive native title over BHP’s Olympic Dam, Carrapateena, Prominent Hill and Oak Dam copper assets.