Johnnie Taylor, and many more singers after him, once crooned, “It’s cheaper to keep her/ It’s cheaper to keep her/By the time you get through lookin' that judge in the face/You're gonna want to cuss the whole human race.” Without hyperbole, that is definitely going through the head of Dmitry Rybolovlev, Russia’s fertilizer king, who is was ordered to be $4.8 billion lighter in the wallet thanks to his recent divorce with the former Ms. Rybolovlev, Elena Rybolovleva — and that’s not the end of the story.
The 26-year-old marriage was dissolved last month, but two key pieces got in the way of it ending a lot earlier. First was the fact that Rybolovlev — who is worth $8.8 billion — could have ended this divorce earlier for a relative bargain price of $1 billion, but his moneymen said that they couldn’t get that kind of cash out of Rybolovlev’s trust.
According to Rybolovleva’s lawyers, that was a bunch of baloney because he controls the trusts, which would have allowed him to free up the cash. So that led to the divorce trial, which saw her go for, “three pricey properties in the US that she maintains are her husband's hidden assets, including an $88 million apartment at 15 Central Park West. Rybolovlev's lawyers maintain the properties aren't his, and that the Swiss divorce judgment blocks his ex from going after them.”
As any good lawyer would do in this case, Rybolovlev’s attorneys are appealing the settlement, something that could hinder her chance at getting anything, let alone the $4.8 billion awarded. A high-powered divorce lawyer not involved in the case, Marilyn Chinitz, warned Rybolovlev "could keep this litigation going on for many years. If she doesn't try (again) to settle, she may never collect the money."
Read more:
Billion-dollar blunder: Russia’s fertilizer king could have settled divorce for billions less (NY Daily News)