Western Australia's Supreme Court has ruled that Wright Prospecting is entitled to half of the royalties generated by the Hope Downs iron ore complex, one of Australia's largest mining operations, dealing a significant blow to Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting. Justice Jennifer Smith found that Wright Prospecting's contractual claim to 50% of past and future royalties — worth hundreds of millions of dollars — from the Hope Downs mines (a joint venture between Hancock Prospecting and Rio Tinto near Newman in north-west Western Australia) had been successfully established. However, the court dismissed Wright Prospecting's separate bid for ownership stakes in other Hancock Prospecting mining assets, prompting Justice Smith to describe the outcome as half a win and half a loss for the claimant. The ruling concludes a legal dispute that began in 2010, rooted in mining tenements originally pegged by prospectors Peter Wright and Lang Hancock in the 1950s.