£1.5bn family sue the world’s most expensive school over bullying claim
THE world’s most expensive boarding school is being sued by the billionaire parents of a pupil who was allegedly bullied by classmates.
Indian businessman Pankaj Oswal claims the Institut Le Rosey, an exclusive Swiss school that charges annual fees of £100,000, failed to adequately protect his daughter. The school denies the claim.
Housed in a 14th Century chateau, the school’s i l l ustrious alumni include the Shah of Iran, Prince Rainier of Monaco, King Farouk of Egypt and the Duke of Kent.
But now fertiliser magnate Mr Oswal claims it has become a ‘playground for rich students to do as they please’ and that it failed to protect his daughter from being ‘mocked and taunted’ by schoolmates about her background.
Mr Oswal, who with wife Radhwika is worth an estimated £1.5 billion, said their daughter suffered i nsomnia and anxiety attacks because of the jibes.
In legal documents lodged in Switzerland, the couple allege that the school failed to act when they complained.
So they withdrew their daughter from lessons after six successful years there and are now seeking repayment of fees for the term she was absent and the cost of the private tutor hired instead. They have pledged to donate any damages to an anti-bullying charity.
In a statement, they said: ‘ We are saddened that it has come to this but, as parents, we are dutybound to act.’
Le Rosey, located 20 miles from Geneva, boasts its own 38ft yacht in Lake Geneva and decamps to the Alpine resort of Gstaad each January where pupils, known as Roseans, ski up to four times a day. The campus has its own 1,000-seat concert hall, an equestrian centre with 30 horses and a shooting range.
Students at the school, which has a strict quota system that limits pupils from any one country or linguistic region to ten per cent of its roll, can also use a local 18-hole golf course and karting track. Sir Roger Moore, Diana Ross and Elizabeth Taylor all sent their children to Le Rosey and former pupils also include John Lennon’s son Sean and Winston Spencer Churchill, the grandson of the wartime Prime Minister.
Despite t he l avish facilities, Le Rosey’s headmaster has denied suggestions of elitism. ‘No one goes around saying, “I’m richer than you.” It’s completely unsnobbish,’ Rob Gray told The Times in 2015.
‘If people put on airs and graces they wouldn’t survive. We had someone recently from a famous family, and after three days it didn’t work out and he left.’
Lawyers acting for the school said the Oswals’ claims were ‘false and categorically rejected’.