More explosive emails in the legal battle between mining billionaire Gina Rinehart and her daughter Hope Welker have emerged, revealing the magnate attempted to offer a $300 million settlement.
Two months after Rinehart’s children, Hope Welker, Bianca Rinehart and John Hancock, initiated legal action against their mother in September 2011 to remove her from the family trust, Welker sent an email to her sister, Ginia Rinehart, pleading for financial help.
“Gin, can you please pay M’s school fees for her?!” the email read.
“Ryan [her husband] won’t start his new job till the New Year and I’ve spent everything on this f-ing litigation,” Welker wrote on November 21, 2011, as quoted in The Australian Financial Review.
Welker further wrote, “I have no way to pay the bills unless I sell myself to the f-king media. I had a bunch of offers of course I can’t talk about the case bcoz [sic] of the suppression order…”
In her response, Ginia replied the following day and criticised Welker for her actions, shedding light on the bitter internal feud between Rinehart’s children:
“Hope, I cannot believe this email!? How dare you! How disgusting do you have to be to threaten me with cheap talk about selling stories to the media!”
“How dare you spend your money on this litigation which is ruining my life and then not keep enough to pay your own daughters’ school fees! And then ask ME to pay!”
Her emails also revealed Rinehart had offered Welker $300 million to walk away from the legal dispute.
“Why the hell don’t you just take the 300 MILLION dollars mum has repeatedly offered you and walk away, leave us the hell alone and start looking after my nieces properly!”
“Not that you deserve a penny as you have never worked a day in your life but if you cannot live with 300 million dollars for doing absolutely nothing then you really are disgusting. You clearly do not want to be part of our family.”
Ginia’s response also denounced Welker’s spending on a birthday party for her husband in the Caribbean, which Welker later cancelled because she could not afford it.
“If you need money so badly, why are you throwing Ryan some ridiculous birthday in the Caribbean? Just cancel that and pay your daughters’ school fees!!!!”
These new revelations come after it was revealed earlier this month Welker reached a settlement with her mother and left the litigation after she split with husband Ryan Welker and has continued to struggle to support her two children financially.
The Australian reported earlier this month Welker and her husband have had to liquidate their assets to fund $400,000 in legal bills and to cover living expenses.
No details of the settlement between Rinehart and Welker have been released.
Earlier this week, emails were released as part of the court case which revealed Rinehart’s son Hancock had asked in the days preceding the litigation for a $15 million “sorry payment” and $3 million a year in offshore payments for the way “she (Rinehart) has treated me over these last fifteen years”.
The “confidential alternative” deal was kept secret from his sisters, who Hancock described as lacking the “intellectual capacity” to understand the Income Tax Act unless he explained it to them in “suitable baby language”.
SmartCompany contacted Hancock Prospecting for comment but received no response prior to publication.
