GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss court has ordered a Russian
billionaire to pay more than $4.5 billion to his ex-wife in what could
become the biggest divorce settlement in history.
In papers
delivered Monday to both parties, the Geneva Tribunal of First Instance
said Dmitry Rybolovlev, an owner of the French soccer club AS Monaco,
must pay 4,020,555,987.80 Swiss francs ($4,509,375,184.80) to ex-wife
Elena Rybolovleva of Geneva. Both are aged 47.
The judgment also
granted his ex-wife property worth 130.5 million francs ($146 million)
in property in Gstaad, Switzerland, where the couple owned two swanky
chalets. It awarded his ex-wife two other pieces of real estate in the
ultra-wealthy area of Geneva known as Cologny, where the couple once
lived together, but listed no value for either address. And it confirmed
her custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Anna. The couple also has an
adult daughter, Ekaterina.
Her lawyer Marc Bonnant called it "the
most expensive divorce in history," an unheard-of amount for
Switzerland and for Russian oligarchs.
But Rybolovlev’s lawyer said that the judgment’s cash order was likely to be whittled down in coming
appeals.
"There
will definitely be a new appellate review and therefore this judgment
is not final given the existence of two levels of appeal in
Switzerland," said Tetiana Bersheda.
A separate statement by
Bonnant and two other lawyers in the case, Corinne Corminboeuf Harari
and Caroline Schumacher, called the record judgment "a complete victory"
for her and said that under Swiss law she was entitled to half the
fortune he made during their marriage. Most of that fortune was
transferred to Cyprus-based trusts in 2005.
The three lawyers said
Monday’s ruling demonstrated that "no one — not even a Russian tycoon
who put his fabulous fortune into legal structures such as trusts and
offshore companies — is above the law."
But Rybolovlev’s lawyer
suggested the opposite, praising the judgment for "confirming both the
validity of the trusts created by Mr. Rybolovlev and the validity of the
asset transfer to them that occurred long before his wife initiated
divorce proceedings."
His ex-wife had demanded $6 billion from the
man known as the "fertilizer king," whose fortune from potash mining
once made him the world’s 79th richest person. He is now ranked 147th on
the Forbes list of billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $8.8
billion.
The couple met as university students in Perm, Russia,
and married there in 1987. Divorce proceedings began in 2008, when
Forbes estimated his worth at $12.8 billion.
A Geneva court had
provisionally frozen Rybolovlev’s assets in Switzerland and abroad, but
it may prove difficult for Rybolovleva to obtain the money because
Switzerland has no legal aid treaty with Cyprus.
In the United
States, Rybolovlev and his daughter Ekaterina used trusts to acquire
some of the priciest real estate in the country, including a penthouse
apartment at Central Park West in New York and a mansion in Palm Beach,
Florida.