The World's Most Expensive Divorce: Russian Oligarch Ordered To Pay Ex-wife £2.6 Billion

The owner of Monaco football club has been ordered to pay a world record divorce settlement of more than £2.6 billion to his ex-wife Elena Rybolovleva which is an estimate of half the Russian oligarch's entire fortune.

It follows a six year legal saga in which Mr Rybolovlev, who made his billions through a successful fertiliser business, bitterly contested Ms Rybolovlev's claims to two of the most expensive properties in the USA, including one at Palm Beach, Florida, centre, which he bought from Donald Trump and a £100million Greek island.
                                   

Now Mr Rybolovlev must sign a cheque for the incredible sum in the Swiss city of Geneva, where Mrs Rybolovleva lives in a lakeside mansion.

The settlement is far higher than the £1.5 billion paid by art heir Alec Wildenstein to his ex wife, Jocelyne, which until now had been the largest confirmed public divorce settlement in the world. Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, was told to give his former wife, Anna, £1 billion in 1999.

 He went on to marry his third wife Wendi Deng, from whom he is now divorced. Mr Rybolovlev, who was found by the court to be worth £5.2 billion - although the figure is believed to be a conservative estimate of his wealth - and his ex-wife have been at war since 2008 over the terms of their divorce.

 Mrs Rybolovleva 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.

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