Revealed: Deal protecting Rio if Rinehart loses heavyweight court bout
Rio Tinto negotiated a liability agreement likely to cap its payout exposure if Gina Rinehart loses a multibillion-dollar legal battle with another of Australia’s richest women.
Key details of a confidential deal between Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting over the Hope Downs mining project have slowly emerged in the West Australian Supreme Court fight that pits Rich List titan Mrs Rinehart against billionaire Angela Bennett and her family.
Gina Rinehart is locked in a court battle with the descendants of her father’s business over royalties from a mining tenement in Western Australia’s iron-rich Pilbara region. Getty
Rio Tinto almost 20 years ago sought to contain the damage of any potential claim to royalties from the lucrative iron ore venture between its subsidiary Hamersley Iron and Hancock Prospecting, lawyers have revealed.
The court has heard while Hamersley appeared to agree to a 50 per cent liability for any future claims in 2005, it is likely to have insisted that any indemnity be capped at a certain figure. That figure remains confidential, with Rio Tinto refusing to confirm the amount on Thursday.
Wright Prospecting, the family company of Ms Bennett’s father Peter Wright, who assisted Lang Hancock in opening up major swaths of WA’s Pilbara to mining, now claims it is owed past and future royalties from that Hope Downs mining project.
Rio Tinto was asked what assurances it could provide shareholders that it had limited its liability to any potential royalty claims, but did not respond. Royalties from the project would only be paid if Wright Prospecting is successful in the courts.
Rio Tinto iron ore boss Simon Trott was instrumental in the deal struck with Hancock early in his career and is now under pressure
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