A WA Supreme Court judge just handed down a 1,600 page ruling Gina Rinehart (worth $40 billion) must pay royalties to rival mining families from a deal her father made in the 1960s.


The dispute has been running for over 40 years.
Hope Downs, the mine at the centre of it, made $832 million for Hancock Prospecting last year alone. Rio Tinto pays 2.5% royalties to Hancock.
The court ruled half of that now belongs to the Wright family. Around $18 million a year, but multiplied across every year the mine has operated.
The trial ran 51 days and cost an estimated $250,000 a day in legal fees. 2 dozen of Australia’s top barristers in a Perth courtroom arguing over handshake deals between men who were mates in the 1950s.
2 of Rinehart’s children also sued her claiming their mother ran a fraud to cut them out of their grandfather’s share. That claim was thrown out.
She keeps the mine, she just has to share what it produces.
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