Saturday 6 August 2022 02:55 AM Julia Haart owns nearly half of her billionaire ex's $1.1billion company, court ... trends now
My Unorthodox Life star Julia Haart owns almost half her estranged husband's $1.1 billion modeling agency company, a court has ruled – after the former billionaire Silvio Scaglia claimed she had 'less than 0.01 percent'.
Haart, 51, broke away from an 'ultra-orthodox' Jewish community in 2013 and made a popular Netflix documentary about it: My Unorthodox Life. She married Swiss former billionaire Scaglia in 2019.
She is now suing him in New York for allegedly defrauding her out of half of their company, valued between $700 million and $1.1 billion last year, amid a fraught divorce.
She also launched a lawsuit against him in Delaware, where their company is registered.
On Thursday a judge in the Delaware case ruled that Scaglia did give his wife almost half the company – but he still retained the controlling interest by the slimmest of margins: 50.0004043 percent to her 49.9995957 percent.
The ruling is the latest bombshell to drop in the bitter battle between the former couple over their modeling and media company and other assets.
A Delaware judge ruled Julia Haart (pictured), star of My Unorthodox Life, does own nearly 50 percent of her ex's $$1.1billion company, Elite World Group
Haart (left) is suing estranged husband Silvio Scaglia (right), claiming he defrauded her out of half of their modeling agency business
Haart argued that Scaglia gave her half of their firm Elite World Group (EWG), but then allegedly looted its accounts, fired her as CEO, and behaved as if he had control, she claims.
The Swiss entrepreneur, 63, has claimed that in fact his estranged wife owns just 50 of a total 123,765 shares, or less than 0.01 percent.
'The numbers don't lie,' his lawyer, Lanny Davis, wrote in a March 2022 press release. 'Mr. Scaglia owns more than 99% of the voting stock – Ms. Haart owns less than .01%. That's a fact.
'Ms. Haart owns just 50 shares of common stock.'
In the memorandum opinion, Delaware court vice chancellor Morgan Zurn wrote that Scaglia texted company accountant Jeffrey Feinman on May 28 2020 that the couple were 'now ready to finalize our wills and the transfer of the remaining 50 percent of the Freedom Holding shares tuo [sic] Julia.'
Freedom Holding is the company that owns EWG.
On June 12 that year, Scaglia transferred 61,832 of Freedom's 123,665 preferred shares, the judge ruled.
But Zurn pointed out, this was just shy of a full 50 percent – it was only 49.9995957 percent.
'The Stock Power, by its own terms, does not transfer half of Scaglia's 123,665 preferred shares,' the judge wrote.
'Rather, it transfers one half share less than half, or 49.9995957 percent, of those preferred shares. Assuming the Stock Power was effective, Scaglia continued to hold the bare majority—50.0004043 percent—of Freedom's preferred shares. Both Scaglia and Feinman testified this structure was intentional.'
Haart was fired as CEO of Elite World Group in February, hours before she filed for divorce from her estranged husband after nearly three years of marriage
Haart, 51, broke away from an 'ultra-orthodox' Jewish community in 2013 and made a popular Netflix documentary series about it: My Unorthodox Life. She is pictured at the premiere of the show
