The nine-year courtroom stoush between two of Australia’s richest women has come to an end, with Angela Bennett winning the right to one of the Pilbara’s most valuable iron ore tenements from Gina Rinehart.
The nine-year courtroom stoush between two of Australia’s richest women has come to an end, with Angela Bennett winning the right to one of the Pilbara’s most valuable iron ore tenements from Gina Rinehart.
The Supreme Court of Western Australia ruled on Friday an asset sharing agreement signed in the 1980s by late minerals prospector Peter Wright and business partner, the late Lang Hancock, was still in force over the Rhodes Ridge iron ore deposit, 40km from Newman.
The court ruling will force Hancock Prospecting, run by Mr Hancock's daughter Gina Rinehart, whose personal fortune is estimated to be $3.5 billion by BRW magazine, to give up its 25 per cent stake in the Rhodes Ridges tenements, giving a 50 per cent share in the project to Wright Prospecting.
The remaining 50 per cent is owned by Rio Tinto.
The Rhodes Ridge deposit is considered the largest untapped high-grade, low phosphorous hematite resource in the Pilbara, with total resources of more than 3.2 billion tonnes.
Though it has lain almost untouched for 40 years, Rio has called it as vital to its long term plans to double its Pilbara production to over 420 million tonnes per annum. Its development in the past has been hampered because it is closer to the operations of BHP Billiton than any Rio-controlled assets.
Mr Wright and Mr Hancock gained control of the high-grade Rhodes Ridge tenements in 1967.
In a 185-page judgement, Justice Michael Murray said in 1982 and 1983 Mr Hancock and Mr Wright were committed to settle their partnership arrangements over a number of mining tenement assets, so the interests would benefit them equally.
“It is evident that the 1984 agreement was the formal documentation to record the agreed terms of the 'carve-up' which, at the same time, was designed to preserve the association of the partners to a limited extent,” the judge said.
According to the judgement, under clause 4 of the 1984 agreement, both parties agreed the Rhodes Ridge tenement be placed under the control of Wright Prospecting.
The judge ruled Hancock Prospecting to “take all necessary steps and execute all necessary documents to transfer the benefit of the Rhodes Ridge interest to Wright Prospecting.”
Wright Prospecting is 99 per cent owned by Angela Bennett, estimated to be worth $800 million in BRW magazine’s Rich 200, and her brother, Michael Wright, who bought out Mr Wright’s only other child in 1987.
In 1992 Wright Prospecting sold its stake to an American mining company, which in turn sold its stake to Rio Tinto. Mr Wright and Mr Hancock each retained 25 per cent.
The Rhodes Ridge tenement is also subject to a separate legal challenge from junior explorer Cazaly Resources.
Cazaly accused the joint venture partners of "warehousing" the project for 35 years, saying the rights of occupancy had not been validly renewed.
Last month the WA Supreme Court held Cazaly had an arguable case and that the matter should proceed to a substantive hearing before the Court of Appeal.
Also, last year Cazaly lost a three-year bid to take control of the Shovelanna iron ore deposit, also in the Pilbara, after claiming Rio Tinto and the mining giant's joint venture partners had missed a deadline to renew the exploration licence.