The High Court has ruled in a dispute over a £5m-plus Belgravia flat, involving Chelsea footballer Cesc Fàbregas, his partner and her ex-husband.
A judge has rejected a claim by Elie Taktouk that his former wife, Daniella Semaan, arranged a sale of the flat to a company in which Fàbregas had an interest without properly marketing it and at a significant undervalue.
Deputy judge Richard Snowden QC gave summary judgment in favour of Semaan, ruling that Taktouk’s claim had “no real prospect of success”.
He ruled that the sale of the flat for £5,475,000 to Spanish company Zirrintza SL had already been ruled to have been in compliance with a February 2012 court order in divorce proceedings. Coleridge J had found in May 2013 that the proposed price was the “best price reasonably achievable”, and the judge said that Taktouk was now estopped from raising the same point again.
He said that to allow Taktouk to pursue this point as part of his claim would “necessarily involve a collateral attack on Coleridge J’s decision of 10 May 2013”.
He added: “On the basis that Mr Taktouk is barred from advancing the essential and central contention of his claim, I consider that such claim has no real prospect of success.”
Taktouk had claimed that Semaan had been in breach of fiduciary duties in relation to the sale of their former matrimonial home in 2013, following what the judge described as an “acrimonious divorce”.
Under Coleridge J’s order, Semaan was authorised to conduct the sale process, but Taktouk sought to put a stop to the transaction with Zirrintza when he discovered that Spanish international midfielder Fàbregas – Semaan’s new partner – was behind the company. He claimed that the flat was worth significantly more than the agreed price.
He secured a temporary stay of exchange of contracts in April 2013, but a month later Coleridge J approved the sale, which was completed in August 2013.
Taktouk v Semaan Chancery (Deputy Judge Richard Snowden QC) 12 March 2015
Nicholas Davidson QC and Stephen Kosmin (instructed ELS Legal LLP) for the claimant
Alan Maclean QC and Tom Cleaver (instructed by Charles Russell LLP) for the defendant
