£150m yacht at centre of battle over tycoon’s will
Family fight for Black Pearl and fortune after billionaire dies of Covid
A £150MILLION superyacht named after the Pirates Of The Caribbean ship the Black Pearl is at the centre of an international legal battle over a billionaire’s will.
Russian tycoon Oleg Bourlakov, 72, died of Covid in June with an estimated £3billion fortune made in post-Soviet gas and cement industries.
He was in the middle of a divorce after his wife Loudmila Bourlakova, 70, discovered he was having an affair with Sofia Shevtsova, who was 50 years younger than him.
His wife and daughters Veronica, who lives in Mayfair, central London, and Canada-based Elena are now locked in a complex legal fight over Mr Bourlakov’s fortune, including the yacht and a £75million house in Monaco.
The eco-friendly 350ft Black Pearl – the second largest sailing yacht in the world – navigates the ocean without diesel engines.
Launched in 2016, it has three giant black sails and propellers that feed wind power back to the yacht via two generators. It is said to have six cabins for 12 guests. A court heard that Mr Bourlakov had previously intended to leave his entire estate to his wife under a 2004 will, but a later will was found after his death.
The document – handwritten on two pages of a notebook – left everything, including the Black Pearl, to his brother-in-law and sister, Nickolai and Vera Kazakov.
Mrs Bourlakova and her daughters claim the document is ‘a forgery and/or invalid’ and are challenging it in court proceedings in
Monaco. Another part of the dispute is being heard at the High Court in London, where Mrs Bourlakova is suing the Kazakovs for alleged deception over claims Mr Kazakov had a share of Mr Bourlakov’s fortune before his death.
Mrs Bourlakova is seeking £8.6million compensation from the Kazakovs and other business associates and companies for an alleged deceitful conspiracy to ‘minimise or even extinguish’ her share of the family assets. She claims that she was subjected to ‘fraud on an epic scale’ at a series of meetings in London in 2018 in a bid to con her out of a fair share of the couple’s wealth.
She claims her husband planned to camouflage his assets, and shield them from her by claiming that they were tied up in a longstanding partnership with Mr Kazakov. During later meetings, Mr Bourlakov allegedly told her that ‘there were debts in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which further reduced the value of the Bourlakov family’s assets’.
It is claimed he said Mr Kazakov was entitled to a share of the disputed assets because of their joint involvement since the 1980s.
Mrs Bourlakova’s barrister Helen Davies QC told the court this was a ruse. Mr and Mrs Kazakov vehemently dispute they were involved in any fraud and claim Mrs Bourlakova used underhand tactics to get her hands on disputed assets from the marriage.
The Kazakovs’ QC, James Willan, alleged that ‘in a calculated
‘Deceitful conspiracy’
strategy put into action before she commenced divorce proceedings in Monaco’ Mrs Bourlakova ‘seized control of assets worth billions of US dollars which had been entrusted to her as a nominee by Mr Bourlakov and Mr Kazakov’.
A judge is expected to rule at a later date on whether Mrs Bourlakova’s claim of deceit and conspiracy against the Kazakovs and others can go ahead in London.
Separate court proceedings in Monaco will ultimately decide what was in Mr Bourlakov’s estate when he died and who will inherit the fortune.