Saudi millionaire's daughter demands £7.5m from ex-husband
Hayat Alireza, 38, says she has been 'confined' to a penthouse flat overlooking the Albert Hall and claims her £2million divorce settlement will run out before she inherits around £100million
A Saudi multi-millionaire's daughter is demanding £7.5million from her banker ex-husband claiming he should support her instead of her super-rich father.
Hayat Alireza, 38, says she has been 'confined' to a penthouse flat overlooking the Albert Hall and claims her £2million divorce settlement will run out before she inherits around £100million.
Ms Alireza claims her ex-husband Hossam Radwan, 46, should pay £5.5million to buy a new home with more space for her and their three children on top of the £2million already agreed in 2015.Â
City banker Mr Radwan, 46, is 'very wealthy', but 'much much poorer'than his ex-wife's industrialist father, Youssef Alireza, a court heard.
When they divorced, Mr Radwan was ordered to hand his ex Ms Alireza a £2million lump sum, plus the right to stay in their plush home next to the Albert Hall.
But refusing her more cash, a divorce judge said penniless Miss Alireza is likely to inherit a vast fortune - potentially more than £100million - when her tycoon father dies.
Appealing, the stay-at-home mother says the £5million penthouse apartment, which overlooks the Albert Hall and Kensington Gardens, is too small and it is 'unfair' that her elderly father is expected to look after her.
'In practice, the judge is placing on the wife's father an obligation to ensure that the wife is provided for,' said her barrister, Robert Peel QC.
He added: 'There is no principle of law that a wife should become the respon sibility of her birth family upon divorce.'
However, Mr Radwan says her 'truly remarkably' wealthy father has supported herin the past - including paying her £1.2million lawyers' bills - and will continue to do so.
Ms Alireza, left,  claims her ex-husband Hossam Radwan, 46, right, should pay £5.5million to buy a new home with more space for her and their three children
The couple, who are both British citizens, married in 1999 and separated 14 years and three children later in 2013, the Court of Appeal heard.
During the marriage, they lived in a flat in the red-brick Albert Hall Mansions, Kensington Gore, only a few feet from the entrance to the famous venue.
They had been supported by former Goldman Sachs financier Mr Radwan's stellar earnings in the world of international banking and his own significant inheritance.
On their divorce, Miss Alireza accepted £2million to give her an income for 14 years, but said she wanted another £5.5million to buy a new home.
That would allow her to mov e into a bigger property, but to then 'trade down' to give her money to live on when the £2million runs out.
At the High Court in 2015, Mrs Justice Roberts approved the husband's offer of £2million, plus the right to live in the flat until her father dies, with the use of a next-door apartment as an overspill for three years.
Now appealing, Miss Alireza says the judge was wrong to take into account her extremely wealthy Saudi businessman father's fortune when making the order.
Under Saudi law, she will receive a fifth of his estate, estimated at over £500million, when he dies and will be a 'multi-millionaire in her own right', the judge found.
But Miss Alireza says her father - who is in his 70s and whose fortune derivesfrom one of Saudi Arabia's oldest business dynasties - could live for decades.
And he should not be obliged to take financial responsibility for his adult daughter when she has an ex-husband who is himself worth a fortune.
'The judge does not express it in such terms, but that is the effect and it is wrong, unfair and contrary to authority,' Mr Peel continued.
The stay-at-home mother says the £5million penthouse apartment, pictured, which overlooks the Albert Hall and Kensington Gardens, is too smallÂ
Although her father had paid her a monthly allowance and stumped up for hershare of £2million-plus in lawyers' bills, there was no evidence it would continue, he added.
The mum is entitled to the 'security and stability' which an extra £5.5million payout would give her, said Mr Peel.
Miss Alireza's £2million 'income fund' would be gone in 14 years, at which point she would have 'nothing to fall back on'- other than her father's generosity.
'Why should the wife exit a marriage of this length, to which she has fully contributed, with nil funds at that point?' said Mr Peel.
'What will happen to the wife if her father lives long beyond the 14-year period?
'Her income fund will have run out. She will have no inheritance.
'She will have a right to occupy the properties, but not a penny to meet her income needs.'
In three years, she will be 'confined' to the single Albert Hall Mansions flat, which - with only three bedrooms - is 'insufficient' for her and the kids, he added.
On top of the £2million already paid, the husband should have been ordered to pay her £5.5million out of a fortune which the family judge said came to more than £14million.
Contesting the appeal, Richard Todd QC, for Mr Radwan, said the husband may be rich, but is 'much much poorer' than his ex-wife's family.
'This was a case of a husband from a wealthy Saudi family and a wife from an 'extremely' wealthy Saudi family,' he told Lady Justice Gloster, Lord Justice Lewison and Lady Justice King.
Her father is 'head' of the family, which made its fortune in maritimeservices, jewellery, engineering oils and property, and whose holding company has the registration number 'one' in Saudi Arabia, Mr Radwan said.
But despite being repeatedly asked to do so, Miss Alireza had failed to disclose the likely size of the inheritance she will receive.
'The trial judge did not impose any obligation on Miss Alireza's father,' he said. 'She simply took it into account as a background resource.
'It is both an existing resource, with him providing considerable support already, and is a future resource with the prospect of the funds being available long-term.
'The judge made clear findings about her existing financial interconnectedness with her father and was entitled to conclude that he had made, and would continue to make, significant sums available to her.'
Her father, who lives in a 32,000 square foot house with nine permanent staff in Jeddah, had funded her case and let her stay in a £20million property of his in Kensington Church Street during a previous estrangement from her husband.
'There is no question of any pressure being placed upon him [to help her out financially],' Mr Todd continued.
'This is what he already is doing and, quite independently from the proceedings, will continue to do.
'The reality remains that her father is a real financial resource both now and in the future.'
The father has both legal and moral obligations to his daughter, he added.Â
In a cross-appeal, Mr Radwan claims it is unfair that he was ordered to pay his ex-wife's seven-figure lega l costs of the dispute.
Her father had 'bank-rolled' her case and she would be unlikely, as she hadclaimed, to have to return him the money.
In her 2015 judgment on the case, Mrs Justice Roberts said it appeared the dispute was between two families about 'the extent to which each should share in the future financial support' of the wife.
The appeal judges reserved their decision on the case until a later date.
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