Mrs Rinehart, the heiress to Lang Hancock’s iron ore mining fortune and estimated to be worth $18.5 billion, gave Hope Rinehart Welker, 30, the money on the condition that she sign over the voting rights to shares in Hancock Prospecting held on her behalf by the trust.
Christopher Withers, representing Gina Rinehart’s son John Hancock and her daughter Bianca Rinehart, told the NSW Supreme Court yesterday that that Hope was also banned from criticising her mother and had to agree not to help her siblings in their legal fight to oust Gina as chairman of the trust.
The court was also told that Ms Rinehart’s other daughter Ginia had now also sided with her mother, splitting the family in two. Mr Withers said both daughters were now in a financial position where in they mirrored their mother’s views and that they were being “controlled behind the scenes”.
Mrs Rinehart stepped down as head of the trust last year just days before a trial to test her fitness for the role was due to begin. At the time, the court instructed the warring family factions to agree on a suitable replacement but the issue remains unresolved with the legal conflict now entering its fourth year.
Bianca is the only family member to put her name forward as a potential trustee while Ginia has suggested a joint custodial structure owned by all four children but administered by an independent trustee.
Mining magnate Lang Hancock established the trust in 1988 naming Mrs Rinehart as trustee and her children as the beneficiaries. The children – John, Ginia, Hope and Bianca – were due to receive the money in September 2011, when the youngest child, Ginia, turned 25.
However, four days before Ginia’s birthday, Mrs Rinehart wrote to her children telling them that they would be bankrupted if they took their money due to capital gains taxes.
Her children asked for evidence, which she refused to provide, and they subsequently began court proceedings.
The hearing continues.
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