Former champion boxer Lennox Lewis can lay claim to a £2m north London property after fending off an ownership challenge by a deceased relative of his ex-manager.
Three appeal judges today rejected the challenge, brought by the executors of the estate of Cypriot banker Aristos Kaissides, to a High Court ruling in March that the house belonged to Lewis’ former promoter, Panos Eliades.
Lewis is seeking a charging order over the house at 39 Beech Hill, Enfield, as security for a £3.14m judgment debt owed to him by Eliades.
However, Ntinos Karis and Claire Kassides, who brought the claim on behalf of Kaissides a marriage relative of Eliades, claimed that he had purchased the property from Eliades for £1.15m in 1999.
This week, Lord Justice May upheld evidence that the property had not been disclosed as an asset of Kassides upon his death in 2000, and that the Cypriot would not have had the means to buy it on his “modest” bank manager’s salary.
The judge also accepted arguments that Eliades had “treated the property as his own” by allowing Lewis to live there at a below-market rent between 1993 and 2001.
Lewis, who retired last February, was awarded £3.14m damages in March 2002 by a New York federal jury, which held that Eliades and his company Panix Promotions were guilty of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and racketeering.
He claims that Eliades has tried to hide his assets by registering various properties in the names of third parties in order to avoid the consequences of the jury decision.
References: EGi News 22/12/05
