Can’t all the super rich get along?
At least within their own families.
But not. Fight fight Fight. Demands that come out of the ying-yang. Because a lot of money makes extreme media people very controversial. They can afford to drag their disputes into the courtroom, even if it results in untold amounts of cash flying out the door.
Just a couple of generations away from shirt sleeves but inhabiting a distant orbit of privilege.
First we had the ugly power struggle within the Rogers dynasty, blood spilled on the boardroom rug. Now the Stronach are back, hammering and clawing.
Cut through the legal tangle, trusts and mistrust – there were more than 30 attorneys at the Ontario Superior Court (business) Zoom hearing on Monday – and it jolts to this: Belinda Stronach thinks her brother is an idiot and Andrew Stronach thinks his sister is a bitch.
Now the public, or at least those among the Hoi Polloi who took an interest in the clan’s internal warfare, may have been led to believe that the axes were buried when a multitude of long-running lawsuits between Belinda and her father, Frank Stronach . , founder of the family’s billion-dollar empire, was declared settled in August 2020.
They divided the baby. Belinda Stronach, president and president of The Stronach Group (TSG), would continue to manage the company’s tiffany assets: horse racing and real estate, entertainment and gaming businesses tied to those properties; Frank and Elfriede Stronach take over the family’s thoroughbred stables, a Florida golf course, investments in Europe, and some disastrous pet projects.
Wait, replied Andrew Stronach, a farmer and horse breeder, and his daughter Selena, who is now 20 years old. What about us?
Stronach’s parents, according to court documents, had always intended to divide the family fortune among their three grandchildren: Belinda’s children, Nikki and Frankie, and Selena. Which meant a two-thirds share for Belinda’s spawn. Belinda is actually Andrew and Selena’s trustee, so she has a fiduciary duty to them. Andrew Stronach never agreed with the components of the resolution, is aggrieved at being excluded from the decisions and has sued his sister, seeking to undo the “horrible agreement” or at least secure richer loot as beneficiaries for him and his daughter. Oh, also the removal of Belinda as trustee and director of all TSG corporations.
“I was promised a third and it’s even less, like 33.3 divided by two,” Andrew complained during the discovery in October. “You know, I want my third. I don’t know why I’m always lower. “
In the midst of the avalanche of lawsuits and counter-demands, Belinda Stronach, former minister of the federal Liberal Party, after crossing the word of the conservatives, has now asked the court to declare her sister mentally incompetent (chooses the doctor), without the ability required to lead. your legal team. Belinda has demanded a psychological evaluation with the possibility, depending on the results, of appointing a legal guardian for Andrew. That’s what was heard before Judge Thomas McEwen on Monday.
Neither claim has been proven in court and a decision has been reserved.
There is no record that Belinda ever questioned her brother’s mental ability. This sudden aha moment apparently occurred during Andrew’s discovery.
As his attorney, Michael Barrack, told the court Monday, the proceeding revealed Andrew’s “shocking lack of ability to understand the most basic elements” of his own claim, “a complete lack of understanding of why he was suing.” .
In an aside that raised the hairs on Andrew and Selena’s attorneys, Barrack added: “The attorneys are benefiting enormously from a family feud.”
Andrew Stronach’s lawyers, he wanted to say, probably not himself.
In her own discovery, Belinda Stronach’s evidence was that her brother – just a farmer, you know, not a corporate bigwig like her – was incapable of understanding complex fiduciary structures and business information.
“Andy has no problem getting in his truck and going to the local grocery store or going to one of their farms and cutting wood, or fixing fences, that sort of thing. When it comes to complicated structures and business matters, I would question their ability. “
Namely: Andrew, Belinda said, wanders through conversations, goes on irrelevant tangents, and cannot think linearly.
In rebuttal, Andrew’s factum notes that he has conducted countless land deals without his sister “ever suggesting that he was not capable of doing so.” Additionally, from her role at Stronach Consulting Corporation, the main holding corporation of TSG entities, “Belinda has armed SCC against her brother,” with Andrew accused of perpetrating “sophisticated fraud” against SCC for decades. Which rather contradicts the accusation that Andrew is a business fool.
I had to compress the stream of paper chasing. But it all comes down to Andrew’s allegation that his sister violated her trustee duties for him and his gracious participation in a “self-checking transaction” to benefit her and her children, the show jumping daughter and DJ’s son. , in their careers. while taking over the family’s most valuable assets. He had also initially agreed that his father would manage Andrew and Selena’s assets, despite arguing in his lawsuit against Dad that he could not be trusted as a fiduciary and, egad, he had spent more than $ 500 million on their pet. projects and a failed attempt to run for political office in his native Austria.
Maybe Dad was delusional, right? More than his son he is a naive fool, requiring a deep dive from a psychiatrist.
“Forcing a person to undergo a psychiatric examination against their wishes is very intrusive,” argued Danielle Robitaille, Andrew’s attorney. A dramatic step that, historically, has been ordered sparingly and conservatively.
“They were waiting in the undergrowth,” Robitaille said of the unexpected competing move from Belinda’s faction.
The rich are really different from you and me. They can be wildly spiteful, especially as siblings who spit.
Reference-www.thestar.com