The widow of an oligarch is locked in a High Court battle over his $1 billion fortune after his allegedly secret daughter appeared at the funeral.
Kakha Bendukidze died in November last year in the InterContinental Hotel on Park Lane in London. He was 58 and had heart surgery in Zurich a week earlier.
His widow, Natalia Zolotova, an art expert and writer whom he married in 1999, stood to inherit his riches.
However, Anastasia Goncharova, 24, who is based in London and claims to be Mr Bendukidze’s daughter, stepped into the spotlight at his funeral to stake her claim — and the two women are now fighting a legal battle in three countries, disputing each other’s claims to the estate.
Mr Bendukidze made his fortune as a captain of industry in Russia during the post-Soviet Union years, before clashing with Vladimir Putin and returning to his native Georgia, where he became a government minister and philanthropist.
Advertisement
Key to the resolution of the dispute, the High Court heard yesterday, are tissue samples from the oligarch’s body, which are being held by a London coroner.
DNA testing could prove decisive because Ms Zolotova insists that her rival is not actually her late husband’s daughter.
Meanwhile, Miss Goncharova, a graduate of King’s College London who works in PR, disputes the widow’s claim on his fortune, saying that they had been separated for years before he died. Miss Goncharova is asking Mrs Justice Thirlwall to order that the tissue samples taken during the autopsy be sent to Moscow so she can prove her parentage once and for all.
Lawyers for Ms Zolotova are fighting the move, however, claiming that, as his widow, she alone has the right to “possession” and “control” of any part of her late husband’s body.
Watson Pringle, a barrister for Miss Goncharova, told the judge that the tissue samples are central to the dispute.
Advertisement
They were removed during a post-mortem examination at the behest of the Westminster coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, and are being kept at the toxicology unit of Imperial College.
Mr Pringle asked for samples of the tissue to be released and sent securely to be tested in Moscow.
The dispute over Miss Goncharova’s parentage forms the lynchpin of the legal battle between the two women in Georgia and the Russian capital.
John Wardell, QC, for Ms Zolotova, said she has a right to take hold of her late husband’s tissue samples “in line with the wishes of the family and her religious beliefs”. Mr Pringle opposed that route, telling the judge that the widow previously had DNA samples, which were sent to be tested, but Miss Goncharova did not know what had happened to them.
He insisted that the tissue samples should be sent securely to Moscow, bypassing Ms Zolotova. “I say you should make the order and you should make it today,” he told the judge.
Advertisement
Mrs Justice Thirlwall said: “Testing a sample of, for example, blood, will decide the fundamental dispute between these parties in Russia as to parentage.
“A simple DNA test will not cost very much. We have proceedings going on all over the place, but the key to all of this is very simple.”
Mr Bendukidze, who trained as a scientist, made his fortune in heavy industry. He was hugely influential in Georgian politics as its economy minister, introducing libertarian reforms which led to swift economic growth. He is credited with creating a previously non-existent middle class in Georgia through his policies.
Mrs Justice Thirlwall adjourned the case, due to a lack of court time, but the hearing is expected to resume in the near future.