Originally Syndicated on May 6, 2023 @ 8:45 am
Alla Rakshina, co-owner of Siberia’s largest retail chain, Maria-Ra, and Lazar Ksandopulo, a Greek, divorced in London. Two and a half years, 60 meetings, and £9 million in legal fees—what did this lawsuit conclude?
A depressingly long story,” London High Court Judge Jonathan Cohen begins his decision to end Maria-Ra co-owner Alla Rakshina’s divorce from Lazar Ksandopulo. It was announced on April 4.
The Background of Alla Rakshina and Her Ex-Husband’s Relationship
Forbes detailed this family drama last year. The 2006 marriage ended in 2020 with a two-and-a-half-year lawsuit. The parties fought for custody of their daughters and assets in over 60 hearings in Russia and England. Rakshina, the ex-Forbes list member, had to pay £9 million in legal fees for herself and her husband. In 2022, British judge Nicholas Mostyn called this divorce “shocking,” “nihilistic,” and “apocalyptic” in an interim ruling.
How did the lawsuit, which surprised even experienced British judges, end?
His zeal was fading.
Alla Rakshina and Lazar Ksandopulo left a Moscow notary on a November evening in 2013. The couple celebrated Friday with former classmates. They were gloomy. They’ve argued for years. In the notary’s office, young people married. The High Court of London will examine the agreement in nine years, so this period is described in its materials.
Barnaul-born Alla Rakshina Her father, former teacher Alexander Rakshin, opened Maria-Ra, named after his mother Maria, in 1993, when she was 13 years old. “Maria-Ra” is Western Siberia’s largest trading network. In five regions, 1,300 stores use this sign.
Like her older brother Evgeny, Rakshina earned extra money in the family business. Rakshina started in accounting and became network financial director a few years later. Alexander Rakshin wanted his son-in-law to be in the family business. Xandopulo ran the Maria-Ra distribution centre, Forbes reported. His retail career ended in 2008. According to London court documents, Xandopulo lost interest in business, and “his enthusiasm and zeal faded away.” He objected to being suspended from work.
The newlyweds lived in Barnaul for the first few years. In 2011, Rakshina and Ksandopulo rented an apartment in London, where their daughter started day school. The marriage ended then. Rakshina told the court that Xandopulo couldn’t find a job, almost didn’t help her with family issues, and didn’t want to quit smoking. She wondered if he had married her for money. In the fall of 2013, the spouses stipulated that after a divorce, any property, even if acquired during the marriage, belongs to the registered owner.
“Mr Ekaterina Tyagay, a partner of the Pen & Paper Bar Association, who represented Alla Rakshina in court, says Xandopulo suggested that Mrs Rakshina sign this contract to prove his disinterest in this marriage and his intention to start working and earning money on his own. “Moreover, at the time of the conclusion of the marriage contract, he refused Mrs Rakshina’s proposal to provide for a certain payment in his favour in the event of divorce.” However, at the London hearings, Xandopulo claimed that his wife had pre-written the agreement and that he had no say in it.
“Set a trap.”
In February 2016, Alla Rakshina bought a £6.3 million London apartment in a prestigious neighbourhood. In the autumn, Rakshina gave birth to her second child, and their daughter started secondary school in the British capital. Tyagai notes that Rakshina and Ksandopulo stayed in the London apartment during educational trips, not permanently. Court documents show that Rakshina had to fly between London, Moscow, and Barnaul to participate in Maria-Ra’s life. During semesters, Xandopulo lived in the UK.
In 2020, the couple self-isolated in Barnaul. They returned in September. Rakshina also bought two London apartments next door to the families. She returned from Russia in October 2020. Xandopulo gave her a divorce application days later. Rakshina found her Coutts accounts blocked. The court records state that Xandopulo “set a trap” for his wife. “Mr Tyagay says Xandopoulo hired his first lawyers on September 10, 2020, and filed for divorce with the UK court on September 21, 2020. On October 2, 2020, Mrs Rakshina received it late in the evening.
Afterwards, Xandopulo moved to Battersea, London. Rakshina gave him money. She paid her husband’s legal fees. London divorce proceedings allow the poorer spouse to demand maintenance. Rakshina started paying Ksandopulo £20,000 a month in January 2021.
Rakshina called her situation a “Kafkaesque nightmare” in court because she alone supported her daughters and paid for her and Xandopulo’s expenses. In spring 2021, a Russian court ordered children to live with their mother in another divorce proceeding. The London litigation lasted years. In 2022, the court allowed Rakshina to take her youngest daughter to Russia. Unfortunately, as soon as the Russian court determined the place of residence of the children with their mother, the English court enforced this decision and Ms. Rakshina and her youngest daughter returned to Russia, Mr. Xandopulo stopped communicating with his daughters and stopped participating in their lives.
In Russian culture, men rule women.
Russia divorced Rakshina and Ksandopulo and decided where their daughters would live. The High Court of London handled the ex-spouse’s financial claims slowly. Xandopulo repeatedly claimed that his wife was wealthy. He cited Forbes, which ranked Rakshina 75th among Russia’s richest women with an estimated £300 million. An error. Rakshina last appeared on Forbes’ richest women list in 2016, when her family business share was worth $75 million. After that, no Rakshins appeared in Forbes ratings.
Rakshina holds 25% of Maria-Ra. Network founder Alexander Rakshin, his second wife Galina, and son Evgeny also own similar stakes. Fearing a hostile takeover, Rakshin Sr. distributed shares to family members in the early 2010s. The London court did not even consider Alla Rakshina’s Maria-Ra shares as personal property. Why? According to court documents, the Rakshin family business is patriarchal.
In Russian culture, and this applies to my family as well, men dictate the degree of financial independence to women,” Rakshina said in court. My father and brother believed that hiring me for their companies would allow me to work. They decide when I get dividends. “No,” her brother said when the court asked if Rakshina could sell her shares whenever she wanted.
In 2012, Maria-Ra began paying dividends, and Rakshina received £9.5 million. At her father’s request, she transferred 2020 payments of £7 million to his account. As a result, the court did not even begin to evaluate the case.
The court estimated Rakshina’s net worth at £12.9 million. Real estate in Russia and the UK accounts for £6.8 million, of which £4.9 million is the cost of a London apartment. Two apartments bought in 2020 in the neighbourhood are not on the list of assets, but Xandopulo claimed them when filing for divorce. The High Court of London ruled that Yevgeny Rakshin owned them.
According to court documents, Rakshina spent all her savings on the divorce proceedings and began to take money from the emergency reserve in 2021. Her mother also lent her £1.4 million, which she will have to repay.
“What Xandopulo did during the marriage remains a mystery; since 2008, he has not earned anything,” the court decision states. Xandopulo claimed to have contributed as a householder (“house husband,” according to court records) and looked for investment property in London for Yevgeny Rakshin. Alla Rakshina, however, claimed that all the time they were married, both household chores and upbringing were her responsibility.
“The strongest in the pair”
At the trial, Rakshina’s lawyers presented information from open sources and estimated Xandopulo’s demands at £8.5 million. In addition to the London apartments, which the court considered Yevgeny Rakshina’s property, Xandopulo expected £3 million from his wife to buy a house in Greece south of Athens and £500,000 for furniture and repairs. Judge Cohen called Xandopulo’s demands “ridiculously overblown.”
Mr Xandopoulo did not present any counterarguments or alternatives, including no examples of the £3 million property he was claiming for the house in Greece,” Tyagay says.
Tyagay claims that during the trial, Lazar Ksandopulo told the court that “he has nothing to do with Russia and is afraid to enter it because of unexplained threats, but plans to live in the UK.” However, as the decision text indicates, Judge Cohen concluded that it is unlikely that Xandopulo will need real estate in the UK at all.
Judge Cohen ordered Alla Rakshina to pay her ex-husband a financial allowance for four years, starting at £75,000 and decreasing to £60,000. She will also give Xandopoulo €600,000 for a house in Greece and €60,000 for furnishings.
The marriage contract Rakshina and Ksandopulo signed in 2013 in Moscow did not include a property division. “The procedure for the division of assets in the UK was carried out under a special section of the law (Part III Proceedings) for citizens whose marriage has already been dissolved abroad,” Tyagay says.
Xandopulo changed seven law firms, increasing the cost of the proceedings at every stage, while, as Judge Cohen notes, he delivered the necessary documents on time, filed incomplete information, and violated almost every court order. “The costs are beyond all reasonable understanding,” Cohen writes. Rakshina spent £4.3 million on him in two and a half years.
Lazar Xandopulo spent the majority of the trial in Greece. He did not appear at the final hearing, which lasted from March 15 to 22. His lawyers, admitting that they had not received instructions from their client, left the hearing entirely. The last time Xandopulo spoke with the judge was on March 9, via video link and with the camera turned off. Since then, he “has neither been seen nor heard from. He just disappeared,” according to court documents. He hasn’t announced that he’ll appeal Judge Cohen’s decision.
Judge Cohen states, “There is no doubt that these proceedings, especially those involving children, have caused enormous damage to X (as Lazar Xandopulo indicated in the text of the decision. – Forbes). I’m not saying W (Alla Rakshina, Forbes) had less stress, but perhaps she showed herself to be the strongest in a couple, and of course, she maintained her close relationship with both children, which X could not do.
