The reclusive billionaires behind the Wright Prospecting iron ore empire have sought a court order for the documents of estranged family member Julian Wright amid revelations his seven-year legal battle for a slice of their fortune was bankrolled by a mystery backer.
The descendants of mining magnate Lang Hancock’s former business partner Peter Wright have been locked in a bitter battle since 2017, after Julian tried to claw back his one-third stake in the family company.
A Perth court heard Julian Wright’s seven-year legal battle for a slice of his father’s fortune was bankrolled by a mystery backer.Credit: Philip Gostelow
Julian claimed his late brother Michael and sister Angela Bennett duped him into parting with his portion of the family estate in a $6.82 million deal the trio signed in 1987.
In 2021, the Supreme Court found the pair breached their duties as executors by harbouring details about the breadth of their father’s mining interests to acquire Julian’s share at an “undervalue”.
But it dismissed the claim in its entirety after ruling Julian’s bid to regain access was prohibited under a $70 million agreement inked between Angela and Julian’s two children in 2008.
Julian — dubbed the “black sheep” of the family — launched an appeal before taking the battle all the way to the High Court, fighting to wrestle back a shareholding now worth several billion dollars.
Wright Prospecting’s shareholders VOC Group and AMB Holdings – entities controlled by Angela and Michael’s daughters Alexandra Burt and Leonie Baldock – netted more than $260 million in dividends last financial year courtesy of lucrative royalty agreements it holds over swathes of Western Australia’s iron ore-rich Pilbara region.
Julian’s seven-year-long pursuit came to an end in August, when the High Court refused to grant him leave to appeal and ordered him to pay Wright Prospecting’s multimillion-dollar legal bill.
But Wright Prospecting’s lawyers have sought the court’s permission to go searching through Julian’s documents after it was revealed he had pursued the lawsuit with financial assistance.
Last week, lawyers for the mining empire lodged an application demanding documents they believed may shed light on the individual’s identity under a court process known as discovery.
In an urgent hearing on Friday, Wright Prospecting’s lawyer Louise Coleman revealed Wright Prospecting had quizzed Julian’s lawyers twice between 2017 and 2018 about a potential funding agreement amid rumours the lawsuit was being bankrolled by a third party.
Coleman told the court the company raised the issue again after the order for Julian to pay Wright Prospecting’s legal costs was handed down in late 2024.
But despite Julian himself conceding he sought funding for the litigation, Coleman said its attempts to glean information about where the money came from had been unsuccessful.
She told the court the iron ore empire hoped the discovery process may expose possible funding arrangements that would allow the company to pursue the mystery individual for their costs.
In response, the court was told Julian had filed an affidavit claiming the information he does possess was confidential, and insisting any communications he had were not discoverable.
Coleman told the court the information from discovery was also relevant to the company’s unresolved counterclaim against Julian for damages for breaching the 2008 deed of settlement by pursuing legal action against them.
Wright Prospecting’s lawyers said the document request was underpinned by concerns about Julian’s capacity to foot the costs bill, which Coleman revealed was in the millions of dollars.
Coleman told the court Julian had reportedly said that if he was not required to “put his hand in his pocket”, he was prepared to pursue the action.
“The mere fact that the plaintiff required funding to pursue the action is cause for concern about capacity to pay,” Coleman said.
Justice Natalie Whitby reserved her decision.
There had been speculation that those rumoured to be helping to fund his court bid had joined Julian in the public gallery during the Court of Appeal hearings in November 2022.
The court hearing comes as Wright’s descendants await the Supreme Court judgment in their row with the company owned by Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart – Hancock Prospecting – Rinehart’s two eldest children, and the family of Pilbara engineer Don Rhodes.
For the better part of two decades, Wright Prospecting has claimed it was supposed to share the spoils of the “Hanwright” partnership, including Hancock’s sprawling Hope Downs mines it currently operates with mining giant Rio Tinto.
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