Billionaire Russian oligarch, 73, who was Putin's judo partner wins bitter eight-year divorce fight to keep £27m Surrey mansion with garage for six limousines out of hands of his fashionista ex-wife, 43

A Russian oligarch and close friend of Putin sanctioned the invasion of Ukraine has won a court fight to keep his £27m former mansion in Surrey out of the hands of his dancer ex-wife.

Billionaire gas pipe baron Arkady Rotenberg, 73, a former judo partner and 'close associate' of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, had been hit with personal sanctions by the UK government even before the February 2022 invasion following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The tycoon has been battling his fashionista ex-wife Natalia Rotenberg, 43, in the British divorce courts since 2016 over money and ownership of their UK matrimonial home.

The property at the centre of the fight is a £27m mansion in Surrey. It boasts a huge basement, a 42ft swimming pool, a games suite, a cinema, a state-of-the-art catering unit and wine cellar, staff quarters and an underground garage for up to six limousines.

In December 2020, Mr Rotenberg was hit with a new package of financial sanctions by the UK after being deemed to have 'financially benefited from Russian decision-makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea or the destabilisation of eastern Ukraine.'

In December 2020 Arkady was hit with a package of personal financial sanctions by the UK.

During the current invasion, other members of his family were also hit with sanctions, including his brother Boris and son Igor.

Now after an eight-year divorce fight, he has succeeded in beating off his ex-wife's battle for the mansion, after High Court judge Mr Justice Peel ruled that she had lost any claim on the multimillion pound property after quitting the UK and failing to engage with the court battle since 2022.

One of the world's richest men, Mr Rotenberg and his former wife Natalia married in 2005 and divorced in Russia in 2013, having had two children.

Mrs Rotenberg trained in rhythmic gymnastics and graduated from Gromov School of Music Arts, later becoming a ballet teacher and opening a children's school of arts and Russian ballet, before launching a clothing label after moving to the UK.

Mr Rotenberg, reportedly a childhood friend of Vladimir Putin, was a judo teacher who trained with Putin several times a week, before progressing to become one of Russia's richest businessmen.

With his brother Boris Rotenberg, he was co-owner of the largest construction company for gas pipelines and electrical power supply lines in Russia, with a fortune estimated by Forbes in 2017 at $2.5 billion.

In 2019, a divorce judge in the High Court ruled that he should transfer the 27,000sq ft Surrey mansion, set in six acres of sculpted grounds in the woods around Sunningdale golf course, to Mrs Rotenberg.

That ruling rubber-stamped an initial divorce court order in 2016 which handed Mrs Rotenberg the mansion, a £8.65m lump sum, plus periodical payments of £360,000 a year until December 2024 and a share of a property in France.

But in 2022, three Court of Appeal judges overturned the order that had handed Mrs Rotenberg ownership after finding that it had not been proved that the mansion was Mr Rotenberg's to give, as it is owned by an offshore company, Ravendark Holdings Limited.

The Court of Appeal sent the case back to be decided again after finding that the judge did not have the evidence before him to conclude that the mansion was held for Mr Rotenberg on trust by the company.

Ruling on the case afresh, Mr Justice Peel last week said that Mr Rotenberg 'is well known as a close associate of President Putin,' adding that following the 2016 divorce court award, Mrs Rotenberg had left the UK in 2018 with the couple's children - now aged 19 and 17 - and 'did not return'.

'Since then, she has remarried an Armenian citizen and herself obtained Armenian citizenship. She is permanently resident there and runs a business in the capital.

'Since July 2022 there has been no engagement by her or by lawyers in this country on her behalf. I am confident this was not due to lack of resources, not least because she received £8.65m from Mr Rotenberg in 2016.

'I am told that she is in dispute with former solicitors in this country. In the course of those proceedings, she has not attended court, has breached numerous orders and has had a 21-day sentence of imprisonment imposed on her for contempt of court, which is yet to be enforced,' he added.

Of the original 2016 divorce order, the judge said: 'The £8.65m had in fact been paid before the order, and Mrs Rotenberg used the sum to buy a London flat. Other than that, Mr Rotenberg has not complied with the capital terms of the order.'

But he went on to strike out the ex-wife's bid to claim the mansion by proving it is Mr Rotenberg's in all but name, due to her quitting the UK and her lack of contact with the court in relation to the case for over two years, despite court orders that she do so.

'Mrs Rotenberg's application for...a declaration that Mr Rotenberg is the beneficial owner of the property (is) automatically dismissed,' he said.

'She has not engaged either with the court or the other parties since mid-2022, save for a brief email from French lawyers from which nothing ensued.

'I am satisfied that it was a fundamental condition of the order dated 20 July 2016 that Mrs Rotenberg and the children would live in England until December 2024.

'Mr Rotenberg's first attempt to set aside/vary the order in 2019 failed because Mr Justice Moor accepted that she intended to return to England. In fact, she has not done so, and nor have the children. They have not been here since 2018.

'She is permanently settled in Armenia, with new citizenship there, a job and a husband.

'It seems to me that Mr Justice Moor was prima facie misled in 2019.'

The judge went on to strike out the ex-wife's application for a declaration that the husband is the true owner of the beneficial interest in the mansion.

However he refused Mr Rotenberg's application that he rule that Ravendark is the sole legal owner of the property.

'Although I am striking out Mrs Rotenberg's application... I do so because of her failure to prosecute her claim and comply with court orders, and the unfairness to the respondents of allowing the application to proceed,' he said.

'I am not making an adjudication on the merits as to the beneficial ownership of the property, which would require careful analysis of evidence and law.'

He dismissed a freezing order in relation to the mansion made in 2019, saying: 'It was there to protect Mrs Rotenberg's claims in respect of the property which are now extinguished.'

He also ordered the wife to pay the husband and companies' costs of the case which will run to over £280,000.