Liz’s boy wins share of £380m fortune
LIZ Hurley’s son Damian has won his fight against his multi-millionaire grandfather who tried to cut him out of his inheritance.
The 17-year-old actor and model is entitled to a slice of a trust fund which is reportedly worth more than £380million, a US court has ruled.
His paternal grandfather Peter Bing claimed Damian was not entitled to inherit money because he was born out of wedlock and had been brought up by Miss Hurley rather than by his father. But a judge in Los Angeles ruled the patriarch had ‘unreasonably distorted’ the meaning of grandchild.
The ruling brings to an end a bitter and public battle between Peter Bing and his businessman son Steve, the real estate and Hollywood investor who is Damian’s father. Damian was born in 2002 after Steve Bing and Miss Hurley had a relationship – he initially denied paternity until a DNA test proved otherwise and Miss Hurley raised their son.
Peter Bing – who inherited his wealth from his real estate developer father Leo S Bing – filed his petition with the Los Angeles Superior Court in February demanding that Damian should be cut out of the trust for his grandchildren that he set up in 1980.
He also tried to cut out Damian’s half-sister Kira Kerkorian, 21, the daughter of Steve Bing and former tennis pro Lisa Bonder.
In a court filing a trustee for Peter Bing, 84, defined a grandchild as having ‘lived with one of [Peter Bing’s] children while a minor, as a regular member of the household’. He also claimed that his son had never even met Damian.
During the case Miss Hurley and Steve Bing, both 54, put their differences aside and joined forces to file petitions on behalf of Damian and Miss Kerkorian. Steve Bing also accused his sister Mary of working with their father to ‘orchestrate a massive money-grab’ to increase the amount that her own children got.
Judge Daniel Juarez sided with them in his ruling and said that there was ‘no ambiguity’ in the definition of grandchild in the terms of the trusts. He added: ‘These restrictive, limiting, further definitions unreasonably distort the term’s clear and plain use in the trusts. [They] contain no conditions, limitations, qualifications, or restrictions on the term “grandchild”.’