Examing the art of divorce
THIS is women’s time. Marches for women. Roles for women. Salaries for women, jobs for women. Equality for women. Empowerment for women. Rights for women. Only not in Monaco. Socialite Tracey Amon on her bitter divorce with second husband Swiss businessman Maurice
Alain Amon: “He informed me of it by e-mail and hasn’t said why. Together for years, we married in 2008, and I don’t understand the cause.”
This case has been reported. But now New Yorkers of wealth, station and familiarity, Americans all, have asked me to please say a word for Tracey.
I, myself, do not know her. Once, in Gstaad, Switzerland, in passing, I met this husband or his family members at a social event. The introduction explained Maurice — enormously important and wealthy — is connected. His family controls the ink that supplies most of the world’s — including the USA’s — banknotes.
He has since claimed Tracey’s “gallivanted around Europe.” Also that she used a blowtorch to force open his safe.
Reportedly, he stored their Fifth Avenue’s $25 million art collection — including a Warhol and Basquiat. She subsequently tried to retain partial ownership of the 27 pieces.
Siding with the argument that he really lives in Monaco, and their time mostly was spent in Monaco, Manhattan Supreme decided the case should be heard in Monaco. The problem? Jurisdiction.
Favoring the male partner, Monaco’s European divorce law is so constructed that it might even force the wife to return whatever goodies the husband’s given her.
“Since 2015, I’ve had 14 lawyers,” she says. “Civil, matrimonial, American attorneys, French attorneys, two in London where he has property. He and his family have multiple European homes and spend considerable time in Switzerland. “It’s costing me a fortune. A citizen here, I’m sitting for two years in a French court with so far no ruling.” Drums out of the continent are beating that Mr. Amon might now wish to bestow his husbandly favors in another direction.