Wife sues Rybolovlev over $88 mln Central Park penthouse

Dmitry Rybolovlev, the fertilizer tycoon and single largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, is locked in a bitter divorce battle with his estranged wife Elena who is suing over his $88 mln purchase of a Manhattan penthouse from former Citigroup boss Sanford Weill.
Rybolovlev, worth an estimated $9 bln and the world's 100th richest person according to Forbes, formed a trust company to buy the apartment for his 22-year-old daughter Katerina, solely to shield it from his wife in New York divorce proceedings.
The sale of the 6,744-square-foot penthouse at 15 Central Park West has been described as the highest price ever paid for a Manhattan apartment.
Elena Rybolovleva said she had begun divorce proceedings in Switzerland in 2008, and that a Geneva court later imposed a freeze on some of her husband's assets.
Despite this, she said her husband has been using marital property to buy a multitude of other assets, including a $295 mln stake in Bank of Cyprus and a $95 mln Palm Beach, Florida home from Donald Trump, through a variety of trusts and limited liability companies, hoping to put those assets beyond her reach. Elena hopes to get $3.5 bln from the divorce settlement.
She is seeking a constructive trust over the penthouse "to ensure that assets are available to satisfy any monetary judgment that the Swiss court shall award plaintiff Elena Rybolovleva," according to the complaint.
Rybolovlev made much of his fortune from the 2010 sale of his stake in fertilizer company Uralkali for $6.5 bln.
Miss Rybolovleva, an avid equestrian and a student at an undisclosed U.S. university, will live in the ten-room palace with wrap around terraces when she is in New York. She was born in Russia, is a resident of Monaco and has lived in Monaco and Switzerland for the past 15 years.
The Wall Street Journal said the sale generated $2.5 mln in city and state taxes. The brokers' commission alone came to $3.5 mln. The previous record for real estate sale in Manhattan stands at $53 mln in 2006.