Concierge wins £1.3m from his Avon heiress ex

A HOTEL concierge who married an Avon heiress has been handed more than £1.3m after a judge tore up their ‘unfair’ pre-nup.

Anil Ipekci married Morgan McConnell, the great-granddaughter of Avon founder David H McConnell, in late 2005, a court heard.

Miss McConnell is a beneficiary of trusts worth at least £49m, Mr Justice Mostyn said in a public judgment.

Mr Ipekci, who is of Turkish origin, earns about £35,000 a year as head concierge at the Hilton London Metropole. He has debts of more than £100,000.

The pair, both 45, met in New York in 2003 when Mr Ipekci was working at a hotel there and began living together in early 2005. Mr Justice Mostyn told the Family Division of the High Court in London that ‘unsurprisingly, given the wife was a wealthy American heiress’, a prenuptial agreement was arranged before the couple married in November 2005.

The document, signed around two weeks before the wedding, granted Mr Ipekci a half share in any increase in the value of three properties his wife owned in the event of divorce.

But Mr Justice Mostyn said it would be ‘wholly unfair’ to hold Mr Ipekci to the agreement. He said there had been no increase in the value of the three properties and therefore Mr Ipekci would get nothing. In addition, the judge said that a lawyer who had advised him about signing the agreement had an ‘obvious lack of independence’, having acted for Miss McConnell in her previous divorce.

‘It was, so it seems to me, a clear situation of apparent bias’, he added.

Since a groundbreaking case in 2010, prenups have been recognised as enforceable under British divorce law unless deemed to be unfair.

Mr Justice Mostyn told how, in 1886, door-to- door salesman Mr McConnell decided to sell perfumes rather than books to New York housewives. He said: ‘From that decision, and from that modest origin, sprang the mighty Avon products business empire.

‘It is now the fifth-largest beauty company and the second-largest direct-selling enterprise in the world.’

He said that, at the time the couple met, Mr Ipekci ‘had no money beyond his earnings’, adding: ‘Indeed, I was told he had been made bankrupt. The wife was living in London.’

Mr Justice Mostyn said he made his decision about the size of any payout based on Mr Ipekci’s needs.

He said the couple had settled in London during their marriage and enjoyed a ‘reasonably high standard’ of living.

Mr Ipekci carried on working and, following their separation in late 2016, moved to ‘very modest rented accommodation’.

The judge said he had decided to award Mr Ipekci a lump sum of a little over £1,333,500, including £750,000 for the purchase of a new house.

Details of the case were outlined in a ruling following a private trial in London.

‘Unfair to hold former husband to prenup’