Rinehart rival trying to rewrite deal worth billions, court told
A claim by a family owned company for royalties flowing from Gina Rinehart’s Hope Downs mine relies on a “futile attempt to rewrite” a key deal between Lang Hancock and Pilbara pioneer Don Rhodes, lawyers for Hancock Prospecting say.
After enduring weeks of sensational evidence revealing internal Rinehart family disputes and private correspondence, lawyers for Hancock Prospecting on Monday started outlining their defence in the highly anticipated legal battle between Australian mining dynasties.
Gina Rinehart, right, her children John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, top, and Rose Porteous with Lang Hancock.
Descendants of Mr Hancock’s business partner, Peter Wright, as well as the family owned company founded by their associate Don Rhodes, are seeking royalties from the Hope Downs iron ore mine in Western Australia’s Hamersley Ranges.
Hancock Prospecting barrister Noel Hutley, SC, spent most of the first day of his week-long opening exploring in exhaustive detail the definitions of phrases contained in a 1969 agreement.
Rhodes’ lawyers had put forward a proposition that sought to “stretch the language” of the 1969 agreement, Mr Hutley said, in a “futile attempt to rewrite the bargain between the parties”.
Mr Hutley spent some two hours traversing the definition of “temporary reserve” and “rights of occupancy”, phrases central to the agreement.
He said that Rhodes’ lawyers were seeking a departure from the ordinary meaning of the words “temporary reserve”, namely “it’s temporariness”.
DFD Rhodes is seeking 1.25 per cent of royalties flowing from the Hope Downs mines, arguing that the 1969 agreement between the men required Hancock and Wright to pay Rhodes.
Mr Hutley said the rights of occupancy to the mining reserves held
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