World’s most expensive divorce: Russian oligarch to pay four billion Swiss francs (£2.6 billion) - and 20 centimes - Telegraph
**World’s most expensive divorce: Russian oligarch to pay four billion Swiss francs (£2.6 billion) - and 20 centimes
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It is thought to be the most expensive divorce in history, involving a bitter tussle over two of the most valuable properties bought in the United States and a £100 million Greek island once owned by Aristotle Onassis.
Strange then, perhaps, that the battle should go down to the very last centime.
**A Swiss court has ordered Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian billionaire owner of French football club AS Monaco, to hand over half of his fortune to his ex-wife Elena, a sum which the Geneva judge ruled to be precisely 4,020,555,987 Swiss francs and 20 centimes - or £2,681,297,538 and 78 pence.
Mr Rybolovlev was ordered to hand over the astronomical sum to his former wife, who lives in the Swiss city, on May 13, according to Le Temps, the Swiss daily newspaper. The couple, who wed in Cyprus, had been married for 23 years.
If the sum proves correct, it will dwarf the previous most punitive divorce, estimated at $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion), between Alec Wildenstein, the art heir, and his former wife Jocelyne. The second highest divorce settlement until now came when Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, was ordered to award his former wife, Anna, $1.7 billion (£1 billion) in 1999.**
Elena reportedly also won custody of the couple’s 13-year-old daughter Anna, along with Mr Rybolovlev’s half of their former home in Cologny, an up-market neighbourhood of Geneva.
Among the trophy properties to which his ex-wife laid claim were two of the most expensive residences ever bought in the US.
These were Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion, Maison de L’Amitie, bought in 2008 for $95 million (£56 million) in 2008, and a New York flat bought in 2012 by trusts linked to Mr Rybolovlev and his 25-year old daughter, Ekaterina, for $88 million (£52 million) - said to be the highest sum ever paid for an apartment in the city at the time.
He was said to be stunned when he found out about the divorce petition on New Year’s Eve 2008 from his bankers, after his accounts were frozen.
In that petition, the then Mrs Rybolovleva said she could no longer take his infidelities, describing parties on yachts where, she said, he had shared some “young conquests with his friends, and other oligarchs”.
Marriage really is an outdated concept.
Re: World’s most expensive divorce
'If the sum proves correct, it will dwarf the previous most punitive divorce, estimated at $2.5 billion (£1.5 billion), between Alec Wildenstein, the art heir, and his former wife Jocelyne. ’
The cat lady?!!
Re: World’s most expensive divorce
Yar, can you please post the whereabouts the ex-wife as well? I should start packing