A ruling by a London court that a daughter could join her mother in a legal case to determine whether they will both benefit from the will of her late billionaire father has been welcomed by the plaintiffs.
At stake is the world’s second-largest sailing superyacht worth hundreds of millions of dollars, artworks and antiques valued at more than 100 million and a home in Monaco worth in excess of $100 million plus other real estate assets world-wide.
Russian businessman Oleg Bourlakov died in a clinic near Moscow of coronavirus, aged 71, in June, 2021, reportedly of coronavirus. Some reports put the cement and oil tycoon’s worth at more than 3.7 billion. He had been a Monaco resident since 2011.
His estate is held in a complicated web of trusts across many jurisdictions, but unravelling his wealth is only part of the problem.
There are other claimants to the fortune and allegations of serious fraud.
At the centre of the turmoil is the fact that there are two contested wills, the first leaving Bourlakov’s billions to his ex-wife, Loudmila Bourlakova – drawn up in 2004 – and a second will, dating from 2019 leaving the estate to Bourlakov’s sister and brother-in-law — Vera Kazakova and Nikolai Kazakov. A divorce case was underway in Monaco at the time of Bourlakov’s death.
According to Bloomberg, Bourlakova has alleged that her late husband pursued a strategy to devalue and misappropriate the ownership of the yacht holding companies, among other assets and had in 2018 said that “a longstanding oral partnership” with Kazakov reduced the share of wealth that can be distributed to her.
PHOTO: The Black Pearl, the world’s second-largest sailing yacht
