Dozens of lawyers returned to court to fight over who should pick up the tab for legal bills stemming from a long-running stoush between wealthy mining dynasties.An ongoing commercial dispute between Gina Rinehart’s mining company Hancock Prospecting (HPPL) and rival mining heirs Wright Prospecting (WPPL) over iron ore royalties and assets worth billions of dollars began in 2010.The matter went to trial in the WA Supreme Court in 2023 to determine who were the rightful recipients of iron ore royalties and mining licences attached to the Pilbara-based Hope Downs mine.The high stakes trial was fought out over 53 days and was estimated to cost the parties about $250,000 a day in legal fees.Nine Newspapers report the legal costs are estimated to cost the parties about $100m over the length of the dispute.Justice Jennifer Smith handed down a decision in the case last month, more than two years after the trial ended, ruling Ms Rinehart’s company must share some iron ore royalties worth hundreds of millions of dollars with WPPL.The landmark ruling also concerned mining assets held by HPPL at the East Angelas site, but those claims by WPPL and by Ms Rinehart’s children, John and Bianca, were dismissed.It meant HPPL retained full ownership of the mining licences worth billions of dollars.DFD Rhodes, another company attached to the Rhodes family mining dynasty, was also partially successful to royalty shares.The court will now determine who bears the legal costs from the case involving dozens of lawyers, representing multiple parties over 16 years.WPPL’s lawyers argued HPPL should pay 75 per cent of their legal costs because they were largely successful in its claims, but HPPL’s lawyers countered they should be awarded for their victory in retaining the East Angeles tenements.“It can’t be denied that we won on the proprietary claim and there needs to be some victory on that issue,” HPPL’s lawyer Charles Colquhoun SC said. “It was the most important issue in the proceedings, certainly the most valuable issue in the proceedings.”DFD Rhodes proposed that Ms Rinehart’s children John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart should pay 15 per cent of court costs after they were unsuccessful in their claim, but the children want each party to bear their own costs after they lost their bid.However, WPPL contended the children should be ordered to pay 20 per cent of their legal costs after their involvement in the case extended the proceedings and consumed legal resources.Julie Taylor SC said the children’s defence was 250 pages long and closing submissions was 749 pages.“John and Bianca took 14 days of the hearing time for their submissions alone, all the parties had to respond to that,” she said.“A rough estimate of 20 per cent would be fair.”The WA Supreme Court will now consider submissions made by the parties on legal costs before a decision is made.