Oligarch’s son instructed to pay mother £75m after world’s greatest divorce case

The son of an oligarch caught up in the realm’s greatest divorce case has been instructed to pay £75m to his mother after a decide on the high court in London found he changed into “a dishonest particular person who will do anything to aid his father”.

Temur Akhmedov become discovered to have worked at the side of his father, the billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, to conceal a whole lot of thousands and thousands of kilos of belongings â€" including a number of mansions, a superyacht, a helicopter and an in depth artwork assortment â€" with a view to evade paying a £453m divorce settlement.

“Temur has realized neatly from his father’s past habits and has accomplished and observed all he could to evade his mom receiving a penny of the matrimonial belongings,” the decide, Gwynneth Knowles, stated in a ruling on Wednesday. She dominated that he should still pay his mom more than £75m.

Knowles compared the breakdown of relations within the Akhmedov family unit to Leo Tolstoy’s classic Russian novel Anna Karenina. “All satisfied households are alike, each unhappy household is unhappy in its own means,” she referred to in her judgment. “With apologies to Tolstoy, the Akhmedov family is one of the unhappiest ever to have appeared in my court.”

Temur turned into accused of performing as his oil magnate father’s “lieutenant” in schemes to hide property from his mother. The courtroom had heard that his father gave him about $106m (£76m) of property to make investments within the fiscal markets. Temur shocked the choose through revealing during the trial that he had lost more than $50m in a single day of buying and selling on the stock market whereas a pupil on the London college of Economics.

His father additionally gave him a £30m house in One Hyde Park, an exclusive London construction, on the time of the divorce.

in the run-up to the trial Temur’s mom had secured a court docket order limiting his spending to £three,000 every week, which he had claimed did not leave him with ample cash to are living the culture to which he had develop into accustomed.

“Now probably for the standard grownup that looks like a fucking loopy amount, however in fact it’s distinct,” he advised the Guardian.

The courtroom heard that Temur became the registered owner of a Rolls-Royce with a customized quantity plate and additionally of a Tesla vehicle.

Tatiana Akhmedova became awarded a 41.5% share of her ex-husband’s fortune by using another British judge in 2016. When he most effective handed over about £5m, she launched extra court action in opposition t Temur. Her case changed into backed by means of Burford Capital, a specialist litigation funder, which puts up money to combat instances in return for a share of any award.

Knowles referred to in her ruling that the daddy and son had created a “formidable smokescreen” to conceal assets, and that Akhmedova “has been the victim of a series of schemes designed to place each penny of the husband’s wealth past her attain”.

Akhmedova said her husband’s failure to pay her the common divorce agreement had “left a trail of destruction and pain in his wake”.

“He has pushed a vendetta born from his lies, that set out to destroy not best myself but alas to try and pressure a wedge between a mom and son,” she stated. “fortunately that bond is unbreakable.

“As a father he has manipulated his parental accountability, as a husband he has dishonoured the position of being a fine father and as an alternative has sought to wreck and power his vindictive propaganda to govern, mock and utilise the courts in England and remote places.

“nowadays’s judgment is the inevitable conclusion given Farkhad’s failure to behave honourably in the first instance.”

Farkhad Akhmedov, who’s name looks on the U.S. “Putin checklist” of officials and oligarchs close to the Kremlin, noted: “utterly predictably, given its common wrong and misguided judgment, the courtroom has dominated in favour of traveling ‘the sins’ of the father on an blameless and dependable son.”

A spokesman for Temur Akhmedov mentioned he basically disagreed with the ruling, however that “he would trust it a cost price paying for should still it cause an inexpensive settlement between the folks he each loves”.

He delivered that he “in no way sought to take facets or get worried but inevitably discovered himself sucked into the vortex of a bitter family dispute”.

The household fortune includes an extensive up to date paintings assortment including pieces by way of Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst which can be held in a Liechtenstein facility referred to as because the Stabiq Treasure condominium.

Akhmedova has additionally attempted to capture Akhmedov’s £300m superyacht, Luna, which was constructed for the Chelsea soccer club proprietor, Roman Abramovich and has 10 VIP cabins and a 20-metre swimming pool.