Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers inherited a huge fortune L'oreal after the death on 20 October of her mother Liliane Bettencourt. By some estimates, this makes the 64-year-old woman the richest woman on earth.
As of October 29, Bettencourt-Meyers' net worth was $42.3 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The Bettencourt family, who founded L'oreal, owns a 33% stake in the company, which was valued at $107.5 billion in May 2017.
In 2011, Bettencourt-Meyers owned a classic-style villa in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, a mansion in Brittany Coast and a secluded island in the Seychelles.
Betancourt-Meyers was born on July 10, 1953. She is the president of her own family foundation, the Bettencourt-Schueler Foundation, which has raised about $683 million since 2010. She also has degree and is the author of books on Greek mythology and Jewish-Christian relations.
Many women I know say that she can spend several hours a day playing the piano, is very closed and "lives as if in her own cocoon."
The only child in the family, she adored her parents. Her father served four times in the French Cabinet and was a member of the National Assembly. He was often and for a long time absent from home, so that Francoise spent most of the time with her mother. The tastes and characters of women, however, were completely different. Lillian was a society lady and adored luxurious toilets. The daughter was a closed intellectual and spent more time with the piano and books than at masquerades and secular dinners. She is now the author of a five-volume study of the Bible, writes .
The crack in the relationship between the two women was caused by Françoise's marriage: in 1984, she married Jean-Pierre Meyers, grandson of a rabbi killed in Auschwitz. With her husband, Francoise raised her two sons in Judaism, which finally alienated mother and daughter from each other.
Liliane Bettencourt spoke very bluntly about this: “Since 2003, Francoise and I have not spoken.” The piquancy of the situation is that the father of Lillian herself and the founder L'Oreal Eugene Schueller once supported anti-Semitic groups and after the war was accused of collaborating with the Nazis.
Francoise herself denies that the cause of the friction is her marriage. The real alienation, according to her, began in the early 1990s, when the famous French photographer Francois-Marie Bagnier began to “screw in” into their family. Her mother began to avoid her.
As a result, in 2008, Bettencourt-Meyers filed a criminal complaint against François-Marie Bagnier, accusing him of taking advantage of her mother's difficult mental state to defraud an elderly heiress of more than $1 billion in cash and gifts. . François-Marie Bagnier was allegedly manipulated by Battencourt, who provided him with cash, expensive art, insurance policies and checks totaling more than one billion three hundred thousand dollars.
The investigation into this case brought discord between Battencourt and her daughter, who claimed that in this way she "simply wanted her mother back."
During the investigation, the police seized the will of Mrs. Bettencourt, in which she declares Bagne her sole heir. According to the butler, having drawn up the document, the lady immediately forgot who exactly she made happy. The fact that the daughter's lawyer used as further evidence that the old woman was simply out of her mind.
“If a woman does not know who her heir is, whether she has an island or not, then it is clear that she is not in a position to make any decisions.”
At the end of August 2010, lawyer Liliane Betancourt announced that Bagnier was no longer the heir - his client realized that she had already given him too much, and the lawsuit against the photographer was canceled. After that, the relationship between Lillian and the Francoise began to improve.
However, in October 2011, a judge ruled that Bettencourt, due to her mental condition, was unable to manage the family's property. As a result, the court gave her under the care of her daughter and grandchildren. Since then, she has been under their care, and in the company L'Oreal her position was taken by Françoise's son Jean-Victor Meyers.
A scandal flares up in connection with the claims of the former (presumably) top manager of VKontakte and Telegram Anton Rosenberg to the brothers Nicholas and Pavel Durov. Rosenberg is trying to challenge his dismissal through the courts, and the company, allegedly controlled by Pavel Durov, is demanding 100 million rubles from him. At the same time, Pavel Durov himself calls Rosenberg mentally ill. The case appears to involve a woman. Social media users are inciting Rosenberg not to give up and sue Durov.
The essence of the conflict
the day before Anton Rosenberg who calls himself former top manager social network"VKontakte" and in the Telegram messenger (the creator of both resources is Pavel Durov who created these projects together with his brother - a mathematician Nikolai Durov), published a huge post in Medium, in which he spoke about his conflict with former employers. The post, in which a large amount of personal information is made public, is also provided with screenshots and photographs, some of which are also quite personal.
Rosenberg claims that he was illegally fired from Telegram, while his correspondence was hacked. At the same time, he complains that a certain Telegraph LLC, which is allegedly controlled by Pavel Durov and is (or was) the Russian representative office of Telegram, is demanding 100 million rubles from him for disclosing trade secrets.
Search a woman
According to Rosenberg, the conflict with the Durov brothers allegedly has a personal background - Nikolai Durov allegedly "had his eye" on the bride (at the moment, presumably, his wife) Anton.
According to Rosenberg, he has known Nikolai Durov since the sixth grade - both were talented mathematicians and studied together at a mathematical special school, and then at the mathematics department of St. Petersburg State University.
“I worked in the very office (in the Singer House on Nevsky Prospekt) from where Durov launched airplanes from five thousandth bills,” Rosenberg recalls.
“At the same time, Telegraph LLC was registered,” says Rosenberg, according to whom, initially the office of this company was also located in the “Singer House”.
Everything was going well, but it suddenly turned out that Nikolai Durov was allegedly in love with Rosenberg's girlfriend. This, according to Anton, as a result led to a conflict, his dismissal with a scandal and subsequent attempts to challenge this dismissal through the courts.
“Telegraph LLC filed a counterclaim against me. The company claims that I divulged a trade secret because I indicated Telegram as my place of work on Facebook, and also submitted notarized screenshots of working correspondence to the court, ”writes Rosenberg, according to whom the company estimated the profit lost in connection with the information he made public at 100 million rubles.
In addition, the note claims that Pavel Durov lives in a big way, buys luxury real estate, drives a Maybach, stays in luxury hotels and rents private jets, which allegedly does not correspond to the statements of the creator of Telegram about the need to lead a modest life.
What Durov said
Pavel Durov responded to Rosenberg's accusations through Telergram to several publications. Durov told Meduza that he had not fired Rosenberg because he had never worked with them.
Also, according to the creator of VKontakte and Telegram, neither he nor his projects are currently in any way connected with Telegraph LLC.
Durov repeated the same information to Vedomosti, stating that he is not the owner of Telegraph LLC and that this company has nothing to do with the Telegram messenger.
As for the personality of Anton Rosenberg himself, here is how Pavel Durov characterizes him in the Meduza publication:
"Do you know Anton Rosenberg?" - "I know. I heard from his family that the man was suffering from mental illness. In this regard, I would not like to comment on this story at length.
And here is what Vedomosti writes about this:
"According to Pavel Durov, Rosenberg's statements are not true, and his post is 90% schizophasic (schizophasia is a mental speech disorder)."
How about on the personal front?
Rosenberg's wife indirectly confirmed that Nikolai Durov showed her signs of attention, but refused to comment in detail.
“The article is about me, yes. I have read the article and agree with its content," she told RBC.
Social media tease Rosenberg
Facebook users mostly support Anton in his attempts to sue the Durovs, but some subscribers and "friends" of Rosenberg express doubts about success and scold the author for excessively savoring the personal details of this story.
Here are snippets of some of the comments:
Irina Pomus: "Subscribed. I will be watching the trial. The fate of the counterclaim is interesting. I would be very surprised if the court will recover the lost profits. This is already a very rarely satisfied claim, but also with such (no) justification. P.S. Good luck!"
Mikhail Goncharov: “A slight feeling of disgust, to be honest, from you Anton and from your story. Sorry if that, but as it is.
Semyon Belousov: “Why disgust? In my opinion, a fairly common conflict, a classic triangle. Considering Anton's small financial resources, publicity is his only opportunity for a successful resolution of the conflict (in this case, he would have to stay with his own, in fact, for this a counterclaim was filed).
Mikhail Goncharov: “The disgust of savoring the details of Paul's life. Each line of the text is riddled with rather cunning envy, but also with self-praise. The main question about the girl is not disclosed at all. According to the text, Anton courted her, but she was not his wife. She could have completely ended this relationship, but she did not stop. She could accept courtship, and then pretend that she was embarrassed. Yes, it’s ugly to hit on her, but this is a life situation. And it's hard to legally call it treason. And on the offer to leave own will meet the demand for a bonus from his brother's share? Is he really sick in the head?
Andrian Lebedev: “The story looks logical and true, except for the moment with the harassment of his wife. A bunch of screenshots of correspondence with the Durovs, and here everything is in words: “I put likes on Instagram to her and her mother.” Where is the screenshot of this chapter? It looks like a piece of history deliberately left without evidence. Leaves room for assumptions that the true cause of the conflict is known to the author, but for some reason hidden.
User with nickname Piece of Good: “Without solid evidence, it looks like a distraction from the true reason and a very serious one, for example, you can really merge something somewhere. And since this is a very bad reason for the reputation of a person in a future job, you can throw in this topic with Nikolai pestering his wife as a distraction.
Anastasia Goryachkina: If the reason for everything is really just a personal conflict, then I really wish you to be able to resolve it on a personal basis. Without involving the public here.
Alexander Ivanov: "You can't figure it out without a photo of your wife."
Court and business
On Tuesday, September 19, court hearings will be held in St. Petersburg in both cases, in which Anton Rosenberg appears. In the morning, the Kuibyshevsky District Court will hear the case on his alleged unlawful dismissal, and at 2.30 pm, the Petrodvorets District Court will begin a hearing on the claim of Telegraph LLC.
Published on 21.09.17 10:03Ekaterina Rozenberg confirmed that Anton Rosenberg, the former technical director of VKontakte, writes about her in his scandalous publication, and the media studied her page in VK.
The ex-deputy technical director of the VKontakte social network, Anton Rozenberg, published an article on the Medium website in which he accused the founders and former owners of the social network, the Durov brothers, of betrayal. In his publication, Rosenberg talks about his friendship with his older brother, Nikolai Durov, as well as the history of the labor conflict that occurred in the brothers' new business, Telegram. According to Rosenberg, he was fired from Telegram because of a quarrel with Nikolai, which occurred for personal reasons: supposedly Durov Sr. fell in love with his girlfriend, and intcbatch now a wife - Katya Rosenberg.
As a result, Rosenberg left the project with a scandal, and now Telegram has sued him for the purpose. In turn, Anton is trying to sue the company for compensation for unfair dismissal.
Rosenberg's article begins with a story about who Nikolai Durov is: they studied together, participated in mathematical Olympiads and went to training camps in the army. The author of the article claims that Durov Sr. has always been a very mathematically gifted person, but strange and helpless in everyday life. According to him, until the last days, Nikolai lived with his mother, could hardly take care of himself and considered himself a cat.
"On the St. Petersburg State University forum, he had the nickname K.O.T., which later turned into the nickname Cat, which eventually replaced the name. Moreover, Kolya actually considers himself a cat, calls his mother Big Cat, loves to meow on the street and in restaurants and calls for this […] However, everyone in the company had long been accustomed to such cute eccentricity and did not pay attention to it, jokes about cats, like this one, also repeated many times, no longer surprised anyone, "Rosenberg writes.
At the same time, Rosenberg learned that Nikolai Durov had long been in love with his girlfriend, who later became his wife. At the same time, one of the founders of VKontakte showed her signs of attention behind his back. A quarrel between bosom friends occurred just after the explanation.
In the photo: on the left Nikolai Durov, Anton Rozenberg
In an interview for Roem.ru, Pavel Durov denied Rosenberg's words and called him crazy.
"I heard from his family that the man suffers from mental illness. I would not like to comment on this story at length in this regard," he said.
In turn, Ekaterina Rosenberg's wife, in a commentary to RBC, fully confirmed her husband's version.
"The article is about me, yes. I read the article and agree with its content," she said.
Anton Rozenberg claims that in January 2017, Ekaterina worked for the same company Telegraph LLC. Prior to that, she worked in the VKontakte office. In several pictures taken at the social network's New Year's corporate party in December 2016, she poses as a catwoman.
It is noteworthy that it was after this New Year's party - in January 2017 - that Anton Rosenberg found out that Nikolai Durov fell in love with Ekaterina Rosenberg.
Medialeaks journalists studied the girl’s page on the VKontakte social network and noted that if you look closely at the photos, you can see that in 2016 and before, Nikolai Durov constantly liked the girl’s pictures.
In turn, the wall of Nikolai Durov VK himself is replete with memes, photographs and quotes about cats.
It is not known whether Ekaterina Rosenberg’s appearance at the New Year’s party in a cat costume and her husband’s quarrel with Nikolai Durov coincided in time, but, as the former deputy technical director, and then the technical director of VK, hinted in his article, business may suffer because of this quarrel - the interests of the Durov brothers, sums up the publication.
Petersburger Ekaterina Rozenberg confirmed in a comment to reporters that it was she who was discussed in the post of the former technical director of VKontakte Anton Rosenberg and her husband. According to him, it was the girl who caused his quarrel with the Durov brothers and litigation for tens of millions of rubles. On her VKontakte page, we found circumstantial evidence that this story could be at least partly true.
The former deputy technical director of VK Nikolai Durov, Anton Rosenberg, published a large article on the Medium website. He accused the Durov brothers, the founders and former owners of the social network, of betrayal. In the article, he talks about a long friendship with his older brother, Nikolai Durov, and then about the history of a labor conflict that happened already in the brothers' new business - Telegram. According to Rosenberg, he was fired from Telegram because of a quarrel with Nikolai, for personal reasons. Allegedly, Durov Sr. fell in love with his girlfriend, and now his wife, Katya Rosenberg, showed signs of attention to her, and hated Anton.
As a result, the Durovs and Rosenberg parted badly. And now the Telegraph company has filed a lawsuit against Rosenberg to recover 100 million from him for disclosing trade secrets, and he, in turn, is trying to sue the company for compensation for unfair dismissal.
Anton Rosenberg
Rosenberg's huge article begins with a story about who Nikolai Durov is, with whom they studied together, participated in mathematical Olympiads and even went to training camps in the army. According to the author, Durov Sr. has always been a very gifted mathematical person, but strange and helpless in everyday life. Until his last years, he lived with his mother, hardly took care of himself (for example, he ate porridge with bugs without noticing it). And besides, he considered himself a cat.
On the St Petersburg University forum, he had the nickname K.O.T., which later turned into the nickname Kot, which eventually replaced the name. Moreover, Kolya actually considers himself a cat, calls his mother Big Cat, loves to meow on the street and in restaurants and encourages others to do the same. […] However, everyone in the company had long been accustomed to such cute eccentricity and did not pay attention to it, jokes about cats, like this one, also repeated many times, no longer surprised anyone.
Rosenberg says that the Durovs and he and his girlfriend often rested in the same company, were friends. After the departure of Pavel Durov, and with him Nikolai, he also left the company, informally helped Pavel in the Telegram startup, including illegally transporting servers from continental Europe to London.
And then, Rosenberg writes, he learned that Nikolai Durov had long been in love with his girlfriend, who later became his wife, and showed her signs of attention behind his back. After the explanation, Durov Sr. and Rosenberg quarreled.
At first, she took this for friendly gestures, then she did not dare to tell, because she knew that we had been friends since childhood, and even worked together. In addition, she herself, shortly before that, got a job in the same company. This betrayal, meanness and hypocrisy were inexpressible game for me, and I, of course, immediately told Nikolai everything that I think about this. Then Nikolai turned off my access at work.
Formally, at that moment (in January 2017), Anton Rozenberg worked for the Russian Telegraph LLC. In the article, he writes that this company is associated with Telegram. After his dismissal, he sued the employer in order to receive compensation, and then the Telegraph filed a counterclaim for 100 million. By showing the court screenshots of official correspondence, Rosenberg allegedly caused losses by revealing a trade secret. Anton himself considers the accusations absurd.
At the heart of the conflict labor Relations: Anton Rozenberg, former deputy technical director of the social network VKontakte and ex-director of special areas of Telegram, accused the Durovs of unfair dismissal, and in response received a lawsuit for 100 million rubles. The reason for the conflict with the Durovs, according to Rosenberg, was the wife of the latter.
Today, the materials of both lawsuits were to be studied in courts: Rosenberg's lawsuit against Telegraph LLC is being considered in the Kuibyshev court of St. Petersburg, the lawsuit of Telegraph LLC against a former employee - in the Petrodvortsovy district court. However, the Kuibyshevsky District Court postponed consideration of Anton Rozenberg's claim against former employer- LLC "Telegraph" company: neither the defendant nor the witnesses appeared at the meeting. The judge adjourned the case to October 24. The trial on the claim of Telegraph LLC against Rosenberg was announced at 14:30 St. Petersburg time.
On September 18, Anton Rosenberg published a large, detailed post on the platform, telling about his acquaintance with the Durov brothers, his participation in the creation of a social network and messenger, as well as a lawsuit for 100 million rubles, which is presented to him by Telegraph LLC. According to Rosenberg, this company is controlled by Pavel Durov, the office is located in the Singer house in St. Petersburg - the same building where the headquarters of VKontakte is located, and the main activity of the company's employees is the development of the Telegram messenger.
In the first half of 2012, the development of the Telegra.ph project began, initially based on VKontakte resources. Then, on August 7, 2012, Telegraph LLC was created. The first name was just that, but after the rumors about the new project appeared in the press, everything had to be denied, as a result, the messenger was launched under the name Telegram, and the blog platform was eventually hosted on the telegra.ph domain. LLC, however, did not rename.
From the story of Rosenberg, provided with numerous photographs, screenshots of documents and correspondence, it follows that the development of the messenger is carried out from Russia. Although Pavel Durov has repeatedly said that the creators do not have a stationary office and constantly travel around the world.
Also in the post, Rosenberg reports that at some point, the entire history of his correspondence in Telegram was completely deleted.
Anton Rosenberg (from a Medium post):
The data was soon restored. From which Anton Rosenberg concluded that this was not an accidental mistake. “Thanks to this combination, I was able to get some useful information, which finally convinced me that there was no bug, and behind this whole story was Nikolai Durov, who, by an amazing coincidence, is the author of that same text-engine, ”Rozenberg writes.
Nikolai Durov - the elder brother of the founder of VKontakte Pavel, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, doctor of philosophy in mathematics (PhD) - worked with his brother to create a social network and messenger. While the social network belonged to Durov, Nikolai served as technical director of VKontakte, now he works in the same position in the Telegram team.
Anton Rosenberg (from a Medium post):
Anton Rozenberg and Nikolai Durov have known each other since their school days. Actually, it was this acquaintance that brought Rosenberg to the development team, first VKontakte, then Telegram - in total, Rosenberg worked for the Durovs for almost ten years.
In January 2017, Rosenberg, according to him, found out that Nikolai Durov had been showing signs of attention to his wife Ekaterina for some time. As a result, school friends Nikolai and Anton quarreled, personal relationships were reflected in the workers.
Anton Rosenberg (from a Medium post):
Pavel Durov for a long time did not intervene in the conflict, but after a while he offered Rosenberg to resign of his own free will. Rosenberg refused, after which he was accused of absenteeism and fired for formal reasons. “... Without paying the salary debt and the bonus, they also tried to delete my work correspondence in Telegram,” writes Rosenberg.
It follows from the document that Pavel Durov was preparing the sale of the messenger.
In response, Telegraph LLC, from which Anton Rozenberg was fired, sued him in the amount of 100 million rubles, accusing former employee in the disclosure of confidential information.
Pavel Durov himself dismissed all the attacks of the ex-employee and ex-family friend, pointing out that the post published on Medium is 90% schizophasic (schizophasia is a mental speech disorder).
Pavel Durov (from a comment to Meduza):
Durov also said that Rosenberg never worked on the Telegram messenger, unlike the VKontakte social network - he really worked in the development team.
In addition, Pavel Durov denies that Telegram is being developed from Russia. " Last time the Telegram team met in Singer in 2014. Telegram developers/designers/sysadmins do not work in Russian organizations”, - quotes the words of Durov “Medusa”. At the same time, the publication indicates that one of the founders of the British Telegram Messenger LLP (the company that uploaded the Telegram messenger to app stores) is Telegraph Inc, registered in Belize. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the same Telegraph Inc owns Telegraph LLC.
As for information about Pavel’s personal property (Anton Rosenberg wrote in his post that Pavel Durov owned apartments in the elite residential complex “The Fifth Element” on Krestovsky Island and a Maybach car, and also that Durov and his team rented a private jet several times for trips to the medieval castle in Perugia to celebrate a birthday), Durov also denies this information.
