Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) helped organise a meeting of Aboriginal leaders aimed at ousting the recognised Indigenous representatives and freeing up access to land its mines sit on.
The iron ore miner provided logistical support and funding for a breakaway group of Aboriginal elders who have been seeking to wrest control of the authorised native title body away from the existing leadership.
Last week a Federal Court judge laid bare the part played by FMG in organising the meeting, which took place in Roebourne, east of Karratha in Western Australia.
Justice Steven Rares told the court participants at the meeting would have been unaware of FMG's involvement.
"FMG orchestrated the convening of the meeting and the voting procedure to a considerable degree," Justice Steven Rares told the court.
"The meeting and voting arrangements were sophisticated and organised through the active involvement of FMG.
"Significantly, each of the members ... who gave oral evidence accepted that no one at the meeting would have been aware that FMG had played any role in the logistics or arrangement of the meeting or in apparently supporting the pursuit of the resolutions that were proposed."
FMG's mines sit on Yindjibarndi land, officially represented by the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation.
However, an ongoing dispute over compensation has led to a bitter falling out with leaders of the group.
FMG has instead thrown its support and resources behind a breakaway group, the Wirlu-Murra Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation.
At the June meeting, participants voted on whether to elevate the members of the Wirlu-Murra group to represent the area in a native title claim, replacing the current representatives.
It would have also deprived the body from being able control access to their land.
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