By Aja Styles
West Australian billionaire Angela Bennett has seen off a claim to her fortune by younger brother Julian Wright, with a judge finding a settlement signed in 2008 stopped him from claiming one-third of her company Wright Prospecting.
Meanwhile, Hancock Prospecting magnate Gina Rinehart will be taking legal stock over two decisions that leave a door open to her children’s claim over her multibillion-dollar fortune.
War of the Rineharts: Bianca Rinehart is challenging her mother Gina to Hancock Prospecting’s Pilbara assets.Credit: Fairfax Media
In a locked down, empty Supreme Court in Western Australia on Friday, Justice Rene Le Miere delivered three significant judgments that will shape one of the biggest iron ore clashes the nation has seen.
The three-decade legal battle over Lang Hancock’s multibillion-dollar Hope Downs mine site in the state’s Pilbara region is set down for trial in late April next year, with the primary parties Wright Prospecting and Hancock Prospecting. A third Pilbara prospecting dynasty, under the company name DFD Rhodes, is also seeking royalty payments from the mine.
One of the judgments on Friday clarified Julian Wright, the younger brother of Mrs Bennett and challenger to the estate of his late older brother Michael Wright, will not be a party to proceedings and his attempt to gain a third of Wright Prospecting had failed.
Yet Mrs Rinehart’s son John Hancock and daughter Bianca Rinehart still pose a threat over their claim to being unfairly prohibited from their rightful inheritance to own Hope Downs via a family trust.
A separate 56-point decision by Justice Le Miere to award Bianca, as trustee, court documents over a historical case involving her grandfather Lang Hancock and his estate will likely be challenged on appeal after Mrs Rinehart’s lawyer earlier claimed: “If those claims [to the documents] succeed, the value of HPPL and its shares will reduce dramatically.”
Mrs Rinehart’s lawyer Christian Bova SC argued in April that the documents could be used to further the children’s personal case against their mother and her company, which was being confidentially arbitrated before the Federal Court.
In a minor win for Hancock Prospecting, a third decision by Justice Le Miere to refer any challenges to the Hope Downs deed – markedly by DFD Rhodes, which also challenged the Rinehart children’s rights to the tenement – had to go before federal arbitration.
It’s a move that will come as a blow to the smaller family company founded by engineer Don Rhodes as it will prevent them from continuing those arguments in their Supreme Court action.
But in a bigger blow to Mrs Rinehart and Hancock Prospecting, Justice Le Miere did not strike out John and Bianca’s arguments against Rhodes’ and Wright’s claims to Hope Downs alleging exploration transactions between them and Hancock “were part of a dishonest and fraudulent design by Gina”.
He ruled “the children’s equitable interest in the Hope Downs tenements is not irrelevant, unnecessary or vexatious”, nor were their defences.
So they will continue to be a thorn in Mrs Rinehart’s side, for now, unlike Mrs Bennett’s younger brother.
In a 204-page decision, Justice Le Miere found Julian Wright knew that in signing a deed of settlement in 2008, which awarded his children $70 million from Mrs Bennett and Michael Bennett, he would not be able to bring any action seeking further compensation, but still did so.
Julian Wright’s case was dismissed for that reason and the reason that he did not prove his older siblings breached their duties in acquiring his Wright Prospecting shares using deceptive and fraudulent means.
But Justice Le Miere did rule that the older siblings’ earlier acquisition of Julian Wright’s interest in their father’s estate 35 years ago, “breached the fiduciary duty they owed as executor to Julian as a beneficiary of the estate and were liable in deceit and in equitable fraud”.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Mrs Bennett and the estate of Michael Wright predominantly welcomed the decision.
“The Court found that Julian Wright’s claims were brought in breach of [the 2008] settlement, and in any event barred by the delay in bringing this action. We are therefore entitled to seek damages for that breach,” they said.
“The findings made by the court in relation to peoples’ conduct were for the most part derived from inferences drawn from documents created in the 1980s.
“We believe that different inferences may be drawn from those documents but, most importantly, we are very satisfied with the court’s decision to dismiss Julian’s claim.”
Hancock Prospecting refused to comment.