THE BILLS PILE UP
Berezovsky often expressed a fondness for Britain's legal system, despite his frequent and expensive encounters with it. A search of British court records throws up roughly three dozen judgments—libel, fraud, divorce, breach of contract—involving the tycoon in some way.
Berezovsky sued a business associate over a fraudulent loan. Other business associates sued him over a botched oil deal. Berezovsky sued Forbes over an unflattering profile. He sued Russian television for suggesting he had a hand in the poisoning death of ex-Russian KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. His second wife sued him for a divorce.
His girlfriend sued him for a house he'd promised her. He sued the wife of his long-time partner, Badri Patarkatsishvili, in a complicated dispute over how to split the man's assets after his death.
The sums involved were staggering. The loan deal was worth $5 million. His second divorce settlement in 2011 reportedly cost him 100 million pounds (about $154 million at the time). Patarkatsishvili's assets could be worth hundreds of millions more.
The biggest lawsuit of all, against Abramovich for breach of contract and blackmail, was for a mind-boggling $5.6 billion.
Berezovsky lost the lawsuit against Abramovich last year and the judge involved stopped just short of calling him a liar. He was stuck with tens of millions of pounds in legal bills.
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