A former manager of Australian rock band INXS is locked in a bitter court fight with her family over her late father’s $500 million estate.
It is the latest in a series of court feuds across the globe involving the wealthy family, and one of a rising number of inheritance disputes playing out in the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney.
Robert Perez de la Sala, known as Bobby, died in July 2022, aged 86. He was a member of a shipping dynasty founded by his late father, Robert senior.
NSW Supreme Court Justice Guy Parker in a preliminary decision this week said the “deceased’s estate alone is said to be worth more than $500 million”.
Bobby had four children with his wife Terrill, including their daughter Maria-Christina, who managed INXS in Europe for a time.
Under a will dated July 2019 and updated in minor respects in January 2020, he left the bulk of his estate to Terrill.
However, Parker said it appeared the deceased had transferred $20 million in Australian dollars to Maria-Christina’s ex-husband, former British SAS major James Copinger-Symes, just days before his death.
“Then, a few weeks afterwards, Terrill made a further gift to James of $US20 million,” Parker said.
Maria-Christina alleges Terrill also gave a total of $US67 million to her three siblings. The judge said she “believes that these monies came from her father’s estate”.
“She herself received nothing from her mother,” Parker said.
Maria-Christina filed Supreme Court proceedings against her mother, the executor of the estate, in 2023.
She is seeking a family provision order, which is a way for current or former dependants of a deceased, among others, to seek a share of an estate if inadequate provision was made for them in a will. But the court will make such an order only on a needs basis.
“Apart from the size of the subject estate, there is nothing unusual about the family provision claim,” Parker said.
Maria-Christina and her ex-husband separated in 2017 and were divorced in 2019. She fell out with other members of her family amid a separate court fight involving the dynasty in Singapore.
“The falling out was exceptionally bitter,” Parker said. “Indeed, rather than James being excluded from the family as a result of the breakdown of his marriage, [Maria-Christina] was excluded instead.”
Maria-Christina and her ex-husband were embroiled in separate litigation in London that revealed the $20 million payment made to him by her family. It emerged in those proceedings that the payment had been made without her knowledge.
Mary-Ann de Mestre, principal of Sydney law firm M de Mestre Lawyers, and a lecturer in succession law at Macquarie University, said family provision cases were “a reminder that a will is not always the final word”.
“The law recognises that certain relationships carry obligations that can continue after death, and the court has the power to step in where it considers adequate provision has not been made,” de Mestre said.
“At the same time, these disputes illustrate how complicated family and financial arrangements can become, particularly where there are blended families, significant assets, or long-standing disagreements.”
She said that in NSW, “people generally have freedom to leave their estate to whomever they choose. However, that freedom is not unlimited”.
The NSW Succession Act “allows certain people, such as a spouse, child, former spouse or sometimes a dependant to apply to the Supreme Court if they believe they have not been left with adequate provision for their proper maintenance, education or advancement in life”, de Mestre said.
She said the Perez de la Sala litigation “highlights another feature that is quite common in estate litigation: family provision claims rarely exist in isolation”.
“They are often brought alongside other legal disputes about the estate; for example, disagreements about who actually owns particular assets, questions about transactions that occurred before death, or issues relating to the administration of the estate itself.”
In his decision on March 6, Parker ruled out wider parts of Maria-Christina’s claim against other family members.
However, he gave her leave to reformulate a claim relating to alleged promises by the family patriarch, which she says give her an interest in the assets of the family business.
The judge said it was “difficult to identify what it is that [Maria-Christina] alleges her father was actually promising to do” and the current claim was “defective”, but he gave her leave to file an updated claim.
