Gina Rinehart’s kids cop massive blow as judge gets more time to decide historic battlelines

The judge tasked with deciding the multibillion-dollar legal battle between the families of WA’s mining pioneers — and between Gina Rinehart and her children — has been given another year on the job. While another judge has dealt a blow to John and Bianca Rinehart, ruling comprehensively they were not entitled to view a cache of documents they claimed they needed to see. Last year Justice Jennifer Smith sat in the middle of the months-long trial battling over the Pilbara’s Hope Downs area — which contains some of the most valuable resource tenements in the world. And this year, in June she was due to retire from the bench. However, Attorney General John Quigley has made Justice Smith an auxiliary judge of the Supreme Court for another 12 months — meaning she will have longer to potentially consider and write her judgment in the Hancock case. “Justice Smith is a highly regarded judge and I am pleased that the Supreme Court will continue to benefit from her extensive experience,” Mr Quigley said. “She is eminently suitable to continue serving the Supreme Court in the role of an auxiliary judge.” The Hancock companies — led by Australia’s richest person Ms Rinehart — currently reap the benefits of Hope Downs, along with Rio Tinto. But for the past decade, Wright Prospecting have legally argued they are entitled to a bigger stake — and more royalties — because of a partnership agreement dating back to the 1960s. That deal was said to have been done between Ms Rinehart’s father Lang Hancock and Peter Wright — his school friend turned partner in some of the most significant geological discoveries in Australia history. And nearly 60 years on, Wright’s descendants — his daughter Angela Bennett, and her late brother Michael’s daughters Leonie Baldock and Alexandra Burt — are claiming Hancock and its matriarch breached its duties as ongoing partners. Months of evidence from all sides pored over the history of the original partnership between Hancock and Wright. And it also aired accusations of fraud by John and Bianca against their mother — along with alleged tirades towards her father Lang and insults towards his wife Rose Porteous, including an alleged attempt to have her deported. Also included in those was a claim from the children that they should be able to inspect and utilise more than 80 letters, faxes, emails, memorandums and meeting minutes in their case, including communication between Mrs Rinehart, Hancock Prospecting and their legal teams Ms Rinehart’s lawyers had claimed legal professional privilege over the documents. But Justice Natalie Whitby ruled those claims were “without merit”. She also concluded that, in her view, the fraud claim by the children — based on allegations of debt reconstruction which left their trust on the brink of bankruptcy — was also on shaky ground. “The evidence is capable of supporting a finding that HFMF (Hancock Foundation Memorial Fund) and HRL (Hancock Resources Limited) were in significant debt to HPPL (Hancock Prospecting) prior to the debt reconstruction transactions,” the ruling said. The West Australian understands Ms Rinehart’s team have been buoyed by that finding, ahead of the Justice Smith’s pending judgment. When that will come is still not confirmed.