Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart pressured her son’s solicitor to send out a media release attacking his own client and “throwing him under a bus”, the WA Supreme Court has been told in further extraordinary claims aired in the family’s very public legal dispute.
Key points:
- Mrs Rinehart wanted her son’s solicitor to issue a media release critical of him, the court was told
- It came after John Hancock tried to find out what she had done with family trust assets
- Mr Hancock ‘s lawyer said her conduct amounted to throwing him under a bus
Together, Mrs Rinehart’s two eldest children John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart are one of three parties vying for a share of the riches flowing from the Hope Downs mines in the Pilbara, in a complex and lengthy civil trial.
The case is pitting Mrs Rinehart against not only some of her own children but also Wright Prospecting and DFD Rhodes, representing the heirs of two former business partners of her father Lang Hancock.
John and Bianca’s lawyers have claimed in court Mrs Rinehart committed a “deliberate fraud” by taking Hope Downs assets out of a family trust and into Hancock Prospecting to the detriment of her children, who say the assets were left in the trust by their grandfather, Mr Hancock.
Gina Rinehart ‘threatened’ son
Their lawyer Christopher Withers told the court on Thursday when John Hancock started to question his mother in about 2004 about what she had done, and demanded a greater share of Hancock Prospecting, “Gina falsely denied those allegations” and made unspecified “threats” as to what would happen if her son ever brought a legal claim.
Mr Withers then took Justice Jennifer Smith through a message sent by Hancock Prospecting’s Terry Solomon to Robert Butcher, the solicitor for John Hancock.
“He’s asking him to send a letter to the newspapers, The West Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian,” Mr Withers said.
The letter was a draft media release prepared by Hancock Prospecting, which they wanted Mr Butcher to issue.
Mr Withers said the draft media release stated: “There’s been a conflict between our client John and Mrs Rinehart, which includes her fellow directors at Hancock Prosecting, relating to the priority of the family’s funds.
“Then it says, ‘Gina has been offering him a number of different options. John’s not been willing to accept it.
“He’s developed an unsigned affidavit, without our assistance, which endeavours to record some of his knowledge of the history of the Hancock group, in an endeavour to claim he should have a greater interest in the equity of the family company.
“Regrettably, his account of this history is not correct.
“But fortunately, he’s not signed the affidavit nor instructed us to lodge his affidavit and commence legal proceedings on his part.
“Instead of instructing our accountants to study the financial records, if he had any unresolved concerns, he instead sought interviews on Friday with the West Australian for articles to be published by both The West Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald without previously advising us that he would do so. We have no further comment’.”
Rivals ‘have no rights to Hope Downs’
At this point, Justice Smith intervened and asked Mr Withers: “Is this a draft media release that was proposed be released by John Hancock’s then legal advisors being critical of their client?”
Mr Withers replied: “That’s right, your Honour’s understood correctly.”
“It’s basically urging John’s solicitor to throw him under the bus and publish this statement.
“So that really, we say, speaks to the power that Gina believed she wielded — that a solicitor would do something like this and issue a statement of that kind, obviously without their client’s consent.”
The draft media release was never sent to the newspapers.
Hancock ‘could not afford brake pads’
To further demonstrate the “imbalance of power” between Mrs Rinehart and her son, Mr Withers told the court John Hancock was so “financially constrained” at that time he could not afford new brake pads on his car when he went to get it serviced.
“His efforts in the face of the different threats he was receiving … were somewhat heroic because there was no shortage of intelligence or determination to actually get to the bottom of what happened, ” Mr Withers told the court.
“But he was being met with all these different denials and threats.
“As a consequence of the level of intensity his efforts were engaged in, he’s also in deep financial difficulties.”
Mr Withers then cited a letter from Mrs Rinehart when she said any claim Hope Downs was removed from the family trust was “wholly wrong” and any legal action on that basis would be a “crackpot claim”.
Earlier, another of John and Bianca’s lawyers told the court the rival claims to Hope Downs by Wright Prospecting and DFD Rhodes had no basis.
They said Wright Prospecting had previously received the full legal value of its rights to Hope Downs.
They also said a 1969 agreement, relied upon by DFD Rhodes for its claim, in fact gave them no rights to any of the Hope Downs tenements.
Opening submissions in the trial have now finished and it has adjourned until September 1.
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