Thursday, December 3, 2009

Family Feud Over L'Oreal Billions

The daughter of Liliane Bettencourt, who is the principal shareholder of L'Oreal Cosmetics, is petitioning the French courts to appoint someone to manage her mother's wealth. The daughter, Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers, has made this request because she believes that her mother is being taken advantage of by a friend to whom she has given around $1.5 billion in gifts. While the $1.5 billion dollars barely makes a dent in the $13.4 billion dollars that Liliane Bettencourt is worth her daughter is concerned that her mother is being swindled. Earlier Francoise Bettencourt-Meyers pressed charges against her mother's friend, Francois-Marie Banier. He has been charaged with "what the French call 'abus de faiblesse' -- the exploitation of physical or psychological weakness for personal gain."

Although this case is being tried in French court I find it very interesting. It should be interesting to see how it plays out. Does anyone know if there are charges in US courts that are similar to the French charge of 'abus de faiblesse'?


The full article can be found here:
http://news.aol.com/article/daughter-asks-court-to-protect-liliane/797665?icid=main|aim|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fdaughter-asks-court-to-protect-liliane%2F797665

1 comment:

  1. I'm not sure that there is anything like this in the United States, but I think it would be a good idea. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cases like this out there..we are only hearing about this one because it deals with a cosmetic empire. People are so easily taken advantage of these days that it might be a good idea to have laws put in place to protect them.

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