One group won the Rinehart v Wright case – and it wasn’t the brawling billionaire families

Who owns Hope Downs? It isn’t yet a Netflix series, but it has all the elements: corporate intrigue, duelling billionaires, money-clawing descendants and decades of bitter court battles over the vast wealth stemming from one of the most lucrative iron ore mines in the world. It has even ensnared one of Australia’s mining giants, Rio Tinto.

But much like the generational brawl between the extended Wright and Rinehart families’ beneficiaries of this massive iron ore fortune, the legal verdict was as messy as it was mixed.

Each side claimed victory in a case so drawn out that it has outlived the careers of two judges, with the current Justice Jennifer Smith suggesting that any appeals could extend beyond her retirement.

It will probably see out the careers of many of the lawyers that could have funded holiday homes and yachts and their kids’ private school educations from the deep trough of legal fees these warring billionaire families have doled out.

In terms of carving up the royalties derived from the vast Hope Downs mining precinct, the verdict came down ostensibly against our wealthiest person, Gina Rinehart, and in favour of the family of her late father Lang Hancock’s former business partner and fellow exploration pioneer, Peter Wright.

And this could cost Rinehart and Rio, which jointly operates Hope Downs, hundreds of millions of dollars.

But Wright Prospecting, which is controlled by Wright’s reclusive billionaire daughter Angela Bennett and her nieces, didn’t succeed in their bid for part ownership of Hope Downs. To have lost control of part of the mining complex would’ve been a much larger financial pill for Rinehart to swallow, running to many billions.

But the uncontested winners of this legal battle royale are the large band of lawyers who have been feasting on what many would consider the grotesque spectacle of two vastly wealthy families – each with more money than they could comfortably spend in a lifetime – fighting over yet more money.

After 15 years of legal feuding, estimates of each of the two parties’ legal costs have run to $100 million.

Wright Prospecting’s annual report a few years back revealed that in one year alone it forked out $12.6 million in legal fees, most of which is said to be in preparation for this trial.

Hancock Prospecting is said to have made the biggest legal investment, having used one of the most respected and high charging silks in Noel Hutley, SC, commanding an estimated $35,000 a day to spearhead its case at the helm of a team of other expensive silks. In all, its legal team was tipped to have charged as much as $100,000 per day at the blockbuster trial that ran in 2023.

Of course, with so much money at stake for the parties, paying vast sums to retain the most expensive team of lawyers looks like a worthy investment.

The same cannot be said for the West Australian Department of Justice and the resources the case drained from the resources of the state’s court system.

The merit of this cornering the court’s resources was pointedly raised by the late justice Michael Murray, who heard related litigation some years ago.

“The question may have to be asked whether any two litigants should be able to consume the scarce resources of the court in a way which must be seen as having an impact upon the interests of others who would wish to use the court in the endeavour to resolve their disputes,” he wrote in a 2010 judgment.

The total cost to the state of the 2023 hearing was $600,000 according to the Department of Justice, although about a quarter was recouped from the parties, who also paid for the remodelling of the court facilities to render them technically capable of housing the trial.

And even after Wednesday’s judgment we have to question whether we have reached the finale of one of the most anticipated and expensive legal fights in Australian history.

Just because everyone has declared themselves winners, doesn’t mean appeals won’t be in the wings. This 15 year saga isn’t over.

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