The legal saga that pits Albert Uderzo against his daughter Sylvie has more than a passing resemblance to that which recently pitched L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt against her daughter Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers.
The latter resulted – aside from a vast political corruption scandal – in Liliane, Europe’s richest woman and now aged 91, being placed under the guardianship of her family. That high-society spat, as it first appeared, was sparked by Liliane Bettencourt’s relationship with celebrity photographer François-Marie Banier to whom she handed just less than 1 billion euros-worth of gifts. After a four-year legal battle, her daughter succeeded in reaching an agreement that Banier would no longer have any dealings with her mother, and he is due to stand trial on charges that include preying on the diminished mental faculties of Liliane.
Like Bettencourt-Meyers, Albert Uderzo’s daughter Sylvie lodged a complaint that her father was the victim of an ‘abuse of frailty’ – in this case by unnamed parties who she alleges are stripping the family’s fortune. Her lawyer, Nicolas Huc-Morel, also acts as legal counsel to Bettencourt-Meyers, while her father’s lawyer is Pierre Cornut-Gentille, among whose clients figure François-Marie Banier. Both Bettencourt-Meyers and Sylvie Uderzo are their parents' only childs.
While the sums cited in the case of the Uderzo family are hardly as colossal as those in the Bettencourt dispute, the bitter row nevertheless centres on a considerable wealth amassed by Albert Uderzo, the 86 year-old co-creator of the celebrated Astérix cartoon books, which have sold more than 350 million copies worldwide since the first was published in 1959.
The 'Adventures of Asterix' series, as it is titled in English, was originally written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Uderzo, but after Goscinny's death in 1977 Uderzo also took on the role of writer, finally retiring in 2011. The books have been translated into more than 100 languages and have led to animated films and a theme park in France.
The father-daughter dispute first erupted after Sylvie and her husband Bernard de Choizy were removed from the management of the publishing company Les Éditions Albert René which was founded by her father in 1979, two years after the death of Goscinny. Sylvie had been a director of the company for 20 years.
It was subsequently sold to French publishing giant Hachette, along with the rights for Hachette to continue developing the Astérix stories after Albert Uderzo’s death. His daughter launched a virulent public protest over the sale, writing in French daily Le Monde that it represented a betrayal of the values with which her father had raised her, and appeared as if “the gates of the village of Gaulle had been thrown open to the Roman Empire".
In February 2011, Sylvie Uderzo filed a complaint that her father was the victim of ‘abuse of frailty’, targeting a small circle of allegedly self-serving advisers who she says formed around the artist and alienated him from his daughter.
“It is a painful decision,” she said at the time, “but I want the justice system to establish that my parents have been the victims of crooks who have pillaged and smashed a family.” She has claimed that they were influential in convincing her father to sell up to Hachette during a period of ill health. Her suspicions centre on Uderzo’s former plumber who has since been promoted to the position of his right-hand man, a lawyer, a solicitor and a chartered accountant.
A subsequent preliminary investigation launched by the public prosecutor’s office uncovered evidence of a string of curious financial arrangements made by Albert Uderzo, including gifts of life insurance policies, unusually high payments to legal counsels and loss-making property deals.
However, earlier this month the magistrates charged with investigating the case finally dismissed Sylvie Uderzo’s ‘abuse of frailty’ claim, describing her father as “lucid” and “in full capacity to take decisions”. In their decision, dated December 10th, the magistrates concluded that the official investigation into the alleged corruption in the management of Uderzo’s estate be closed. Albert Uderzo and his wife Ada issued a statement through their lawyer stating their “wish that this decision puts an end to the judicial and media harassment orchestrated by their daughter and son-in-law Bernard de Choizy”.
But the feud is far from over. On December 2nd, prior to the magistrates’ decision, Albert Uderzo filed a complaint against his daughter for “psychological violence”. His lawyer, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, announced that “we have decided to make Sylvie Uderzo and her husband understand that we will not allow ourselves to be had.”
Sylvie Uderzo, meanwhile, immediately appealed against the magistrates decision to close the case. That will now be heard next year by the Versailles appeals court, and if successful would see the investigation reopened. “My client believes gravely prejudicial acts have been committed at her father’s cost,” insisted Nicolas Huc-Morel, lawyer for Sylvie Uderzo.
'Astonishing energy and mnesic performances'
Mediapart has gained access to the text of the magistrates’ December 10th decision to dismiss the case. The 25-page document summarises the two years of investigations led by judges Jean-Michel Bergès and Dominique Kirchner.
They describe the existence of “two clans” within Uderzo’s former publishing company, Les Edtions Albert René (EAR), in which the Uderzo family held an 80% stake, the remaining 20% being held by Albert Uderzo’s late colleague and Astérix co-creator René Goscinny. In 2001, Albert Uderzo gave his daughter 49.9% of the shares.
Albert Uderzo, citing reasons of declining health, sold his share of the capital to Hachette in 2008. René Goscinny’s daughter Anne subsequently also sold her stake to Hachette, followed by Uderzo’s daughter Sylvie who relinquished her share in 2011.
The judges detail that the Uderzo’s made a tidy profit from the sale. Albert and his wife Ada received 12 million euros for their share, along with a single payment for “exceptional copyrights” amounting to 10 million euros. The also receive a yearly 1.4 million euros in copyright payments.
The couple’s wealth today includes a townhouse in the upmarket Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a house in countryside south-west of Paris and two others in Brittany. They own three Ferrari sportscars and have significant financial investments. In all, the judges estimate their net worth at more than 21 million euros.
In statements to police investigators and the magistrates, Albert Uderzo said his daughter had received 13 million euros for the sale of her shares in EAR to Hachette, along with a donation of 4 million euros.
The judges' report that Uderzo strongly defended his entourage from the accusations of his daughter. These were his lawyer Yves Sicard (who died in 2011), his sollicitor Michel Mouchtouris, his right-hand man Jean-Claude Gouello, and chartered accountant Armand Turquet.
He said he knew that Gouello - who gradually moved up in the household ranks from plumber and then private chauffeur to supervisor of renovation and repairs to the family homes and latterly their unofficial property consultant - had received payments from building firms engaged to renovate his different properties, but he did not know how much (these in fact amounted to 280,000 euros between 2009 and 2012).
He also justified his sale of one of his Ferraris to his solicitor Mouchtouris for at a knock-down price of 30,000 euros – Uderzo had originally purchased the vehicle for 140,000 euros. Uderzo also claimed he rightly paid Mouchtouris 189,500 euros in fees over a period of one year despite the dubious nature of some of the solicitor’s acts; these included the creation of two common-interest property companies for Uderzo and his wife, for which Mouchtouris charged a fee of 60,000 euros, which the judges described as being “without legal interest given their marriage contract”.
Despite such curious financial dealings, the judges appeared above all to have been convinced to throw out Sylvie Uderzo’s case for ‘abuse of frailty’ on the grounds of a psychological and psychiatric examination of Albert Uderzo by two expert medics. “Albert Uderzo presented no pathological troubles due to ageing, nor as a result of damage to his cognitive functions,” wrote the judges in a summary of the expert’s report. “[…] he was not in a state of vulnerability but possessed a full capacity to take decisions. He had an energy and mnesic performances that were astonishing with regard to his age.”
“The subject had a surprising vivacity of mind when he was replying to the two [expert] questioners,” they continued, concluding: “No-one could take advantage of an eventual moroseness or lassitude with which to push him into letting others look after his activities. He suffered from no memory or attention difficulties.”
No date has yet been fixed for the hearing of Sylvie Uderzo's appeal, which is unlikely to be held before at least several months.
-------------------------
English version by Graham Tearse