Michael Tringham investigates a $57m intestacy
A self-made Greek shipping tycoon is the last person one would expect to die intestate. Yet that did happen with Mr Loucas Haji-Ioannou, whose family is probably best-known in this country for the enterprise of his son Stelios, founder of the easyJet airline.
His family were his legal heirs. But the High Court was asked to decide on the outcome of a ten-year-old dispute between the deceased and his former son-in-law Mr Ioannis Frangos, over $57,617,884.70 (including interest) plus legal costs of €700,000. Mr Haji-Ioannou had contended that he had loaned money to Mr Frangos, who in turn maintained it was a gift.
The Greek Court of Appeal ruled in Mr Haji-Ioannou’s favour in May 2008. He applied to register that judgment for enforcement in England on 15 December 2008—but died in Athens two days later, intestate.
In January 2009 his heirs—his widow and children —applied to take over that registration. Following his death the issue became: when did the heirs inherit the deceased’s right to the benefit of the judgment, which constituted a moveable asset of his
