Elie Taktouk claimed his former wife Daniella Semaan understated the amount of financial support she receives from boyfriend Cesc Fabregas during their divorce proceedings.
He launched a legal bid yesterday in a further attempt to stop the sale of the luxury Belgravia flat they once shared after he was ordered to use profits from the sale and a top-up payment to give her £1.4million for a new home.
Daniella Semaan, 38, who gave birth to Fabregas’s child two weeks ago, separated from Elie Taktouk, a London property tycoon, in 2011 after 12 years of marriage.
During their divorce battle, she told judges that she received little financial support from the midfielder, with whom she was alleged to have had an affair, and that his obligations were only to their baby. She said the 25-year-old paid for the cost of her travel between Barcelona and London and looked after her whilst she was in Spain but nothing more.
Her evidence during the divorce case led to the judge, Mr Justice Coleridge, ruling that the £7 million flat where she lived in Belgravia with her ex-husband should be sold.
Mr Taktouk says if the sale went through it could mean his ex-wife gets to stay in the flat and make a £1.4 million profit.
The profit, with a top-up payment from Mr Taktouk, would provide the £1.4 million Ms Semaan needs for a new home. But the case took an “extraordinary” twist when a company controlled by the footballer put in a bid for the Grade II-listed Upper Belgrave Street flat, offering about £5.4 million, the Court of Appeal heard today.
Stephen Lyon, Mr Taktouk's barrister, told the Court of Appeal that Miss Semaan had argued that Fabregas' obligations were only to their child, and not her.
'Mr Fabregas, we say, is quite clearly a resource of far greater significance than the wife let on in the course of her evidence,' claimed Mr Lyon.
At the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Jackson told Mr Taktouk that he had no grounds on which to claim that Mr Justice Coleridge’s previous assessment of the Ms Semaan’s financial position was in any way wrong.
The Judge said:
“No doubt he will support the child, but the long term support of Mr Fabregas for the wife is not something which could be counted on. Even if the company controlled by Mr Fabregas buys the former matrimonial home, this will still not be a property which the wife owns.
She will live there only by the permission of Mr Fabregas and the fact that his company has made an offer - an insufficient offer, it would seem - does not materially change the facts as they were before Mr Justice Coleridge.”
Despite the appeal, the flat will now be sold and the proceeds will go towards paying off the cash settlement, as ruled in the previous trial at the High Court.
