£7m for wife of trader who blew cash on sex and drugs
A WOMAN whose oil trader husband spent £600,000 on drink, drugs and call girls yesterday won a landmark battle to be awarded more than half their fortune.
David Rapp and his wife Francoise enjoyed a life of luxury for 16 years, living in a £3.5million flat in one of London’s most prestigious addresses and spending almost every weekend in Monte Carlo.
But Mr Rapp, 56, was a drinker, drug addict and user of call girls, a court heard.
After years of putting up with it, Mrs Rapp walked out in 2009. In divorce proceedings, she claimed that she should get more than half their £13.6 million fortune, but her exhusband argued he should not be punished for his addictive ‘illness’ with a lesser share.
Pointing to the vows they took on their wedding day in 1994, he said she had taken him ‘for better or worse’ and should have accepted him as he was.
In 2014, a family court judge awarded 47-year- old Mrs Rapp a £7.4 million slice of the fortune – £1.2 million more than her husband – and yesterday the Court of Appeal upheld the award. Lady Justice Black said it was necessary to ensure that the wife, who has no hope of making a living, could meet her £170,000-a-year needs.
‘The assessment of a spouse’s needs includes a consideration of the way in which the parties led their lives whilst together,’ she said. ‘ When approaching the wife’s budget, the judge was entitled to take account, as he did, of the parties’ high standard of living during the marriage.’
The court heard that, over the course of the marriage, the couple accumulated a fortune, including properties in St Tropez and a substantial investment portfolio.
With no children, they enjoyed a luxury lifestyle, and at one time were worth well over £20million, before failed investments knocked £9 million off their balance sheet.
In the early years, Mr Rapp did not take drugs, use escorts or drink to excess, but that all changed in 2003 when his life began to go downhill rapidly.
The court heard it was accepted on all sides that he drank excessively, became addicted to cocaine and spent money on escort girls.
He tried rehab in South Africa, but did not beat his addiction and ultimately lost his job when his employers found out about his behaviour.
In a divorce hearing in 2014, Judge Mark Everall QC said £600,000 had probably gone on drink, drugs and escorts in three years after they split. He said Mr Rapp’s conduct justified a departure from the usual rule that assets were split equally in big money cases.
The judge awarded Mrs Rapp £7.43 million, including their Pont Street apartment near Harrods, and Mr Rapp assets worth £6.2 million.
Brent Molyneux, representing the husband, had said Mr Rapp’s spending was not a ‘lifestyle choice’ - because he had been acting ‘in the teeth of compulsion’.
‘There’s nothing morally culpable about a man who suffers from an addiction... addiction is punishment enough,’ he said, adding: ‘One takes one’s spouse as one finds them.’
But Howard Shaw QC, for the wife, said: ‘It was wanton, it was reckless, and family money was frittered away.’
She had done her best to help her husband through his problems, joining him in attending therapy and counselling – but to no avail.
Judge Everall had found that Mrs Rapp, who gave up work early in the relationship, was not now likely to be able to make her own living, in contrast to her ex-husband.
Passing judgment yesterday, Lady Justice Black, Lord Justice Patten and Mr Justice Baker dismissed his appeal and upheld Mrs Rapp’s £7.4 million pay-out.
‘It was wanton, it was reckless’