February
Reclusive iron ore magnates $8b richer after selling to Japan’s Mitsui
The Bennett and Wright families are the heirs to the fortune made by Peter Wright, the business partner of mining magnate Lang Hancock.
November 2024
Chris Ellison’s luxury property on the market
The MinRes founder and wife Tia Ellison have turned to Alan Bond’s daughter to sell one of their Perth mansions.
February 2024
The country’s most secretive billionaires are about to get much richer
Angela Bennett never wanted the family business. The daughter of prospector Peter Wright almost sold it all. Now it’s about to become a bonanza.
November 2023
How Rio Tinto changed Australia
The group’s pioneering role in the Pilbara helped transform the nation through engagement with Asia. A new book reveals the full story for the first time.
Rio, Rinehart discussed risk of third-party claim to mine venture
Senior Rio Tinto executives and Gina Rinehart discussed in 2005 the risk that their iron ore joint venture may attract a claim from another Perth dynasty.
October 2023
Old diary entry casts doubt over lucrative claim to Hancock mining assets
An 18-year-old diary entry from a former Wright Prospecting executive has cast doubt over a billionaire family’s claim to ownership and lucrative royalties flowing from one of Gina Rinehart’s Pilbara mines.
August 2023
Rinehart defrauded her children in ‘calculated’ scheme, two of them claim
A Perth court heard two of Gina Rinehart’s children claim she defrauded them of rights to mining tenements established by her father. A kilometre away, the billionaire said in a speech it was sad the media focussed on rifts in the family.
Rinehart rival trying to rewrite deal worth billions, court told
Lawyers for a family owned company had put forward a proposition that sought to “stretch the language” of a 1969 agreement involving Lang Hancock.
Trove of telexes and letters shapes the battle for Rinehart billions
Documents traversing decades of history and revealing deeply private correspondence between family members have been exhumed in the first two weeks of a high-stakes court case.
‘Weak as ever’: Emails reveal bitter words in Rinehart family rift
A court battle over billions of dollars of mining royalties in WA has exposed details of the fight over a trust that split Gina Rinehart’s family two decades ago.
July 2023
Lang Hancock ‘exaggerated’ his role in WA mining history, court told
The Pilbara icon “shot his mouth off” at a meeting of associates in 1972 and later wrote to one of them to try to put things right, the court heard.
The Pilbara’s forgotten man stakes a claim to Hancock millions
Don Rhodes was a key figure in the development of WA’s Pilbara but has been largely forgotten by history, the CEO of his company believes. It now wants a share of Gina Rinehart’s mining royalties.
Bombshell letter shows Rinehart ‘knew for decades’ about rival’s share
A decades-old letter from Lang Hancock to his daughter Gina Rinehart is a key piece of evidence in a rival family’s claim to billions of dollars in mining revenue, a court heard.
‘Loyalty, trust’: Simple proposition at heart of WA’s biggest case
After a decade of delay and peripheral court skirmishes, dozens of lawyers from across Australia descended on Perth’s Supreme Court on Monday where two of the country’s richest families prepared squared off.
June 2023
Kerry Stokes elevates the next West Australian hero
The Stokes-controlled canonisation of Gina Rinehart omitted legal disputes with her children entirely.
February 2020
Julian Wright breaks down on the stand as he fights billionaire sister
Julian Wright is in the midst of a court case in which he argues his Rich List siblings duped him out of his share in the family fortune.
Lang Hancock was convinced Julian Wright was 'out of the picture'
Julian Wright argues his siblings tricked him when he agreed to sell his share in the family company now worth billions of dollars.
Rich Lister deceived younger brother out of wealth, court told
Julian Wright alleges that in the 1980s he was duped out of a one-third stake in Wright Prospecting, which is now worth billions.
Billionaire accused of fraud in family fight for iron ore fortune
The brother of billionaire iron ore heiress Angela Bennett has suffered a legal setback on the eve of a Supreme Court trial where he has accused her of fraud and is seeking to recoup a huge piece of the family's vast fortune.
October 2019
Wright Prospecting reaps bumper profit on iron ore recovery
The tenements pegged by Peter Wright and Lang Hancock in the 1960s continue to pay off handsomely, although massive legal bills are an unwelcome part of the legacy.