Lang Hancock sold mining land to buy jewellery, jet for his wife

afr.com:

Pilbara icon Lang Hancock sold off valuable mining tenements and stripped his own company of cash to buy his wife Rose Porteous luxury cars, jewellery and a private jet, lawyers claim.

The WA Supreme Court heard that Hancock clearly breached his duty as a director of Hancock Prospecting in the late 1980s, when he sold mining tenements in the state’s Pilbara and other assets in a “labyrinthine” scheme to fund a luxury lifestyle.

Hancock Prospecting lawyer Noel Hutley alleged on Friday that Hancock siphoned cash out of the company at a time it was already “haemorrhaging money” after several Romanian bartering deals he had entered into went south.

Gina Rinehart was concerned about what Lang Hancock was doing with the company’s assets, and the role Rose Porteous played.  

“By this time, Lang Hancock had taken tens of millions of dollars out of [Hancock Prospecting], most of which went to Rose to pay for things like mansions, luxury cars, jewellery, and a private jet,” Mr Hutley said.

“That is what led Lang Hancock to selling off various of the tenements.”

Everything Hancock was doing at this time “was for his own self-interest and to please his then-wife Rose”, not to benefit Hancock Prospecting or its partnership with Wright Prospecting.

The court heard extraordinary detail about the lengths to which Hancock went to avoid tax – and the scrutiny of his daughter and other company shareholders – by using a series of separate companies he controlled to funnel Hancock Prospecting assets through.

Hancock allegedly loaned millions of dollars from a secondary company which he controlled, Hancock Family Memorial Foundation (HFMF), to Hancock Prospecting.

Hancock Prospecting later paid that cash back to HFMF, which then funnelled the