The former wife of a Russian oligarch has dropped a negligence claim against her former law firm, Payne Hicks Beach, which cited a failure to seize one of her ex-husband's most high-profile assets – the 115-metre Lloyd Werft superyacht Luna – during divorce proceedings.
This marks the latest installment in a decade of an acrimonious legal struggle that began when Tatiana Soroka issued a financial relief petition against her husband, former Russian senator Farkhad Akhmedov, in 2013. Soroka would officially file for divorce three years later, with London's High Court awarding her a record-breaking £453 million settlement.
The negligence claim against Payne Hicks Beach, first filed in 2023, alleged that the firm did not provide the correct advice when Soroka asked them to "explore options" to have Luna impounded while she was docked in Miami. The superyacht remained there from January to March 2017, during which time Soroka hired secondary counsel in the US to discuss the possibility of seizure.
Soroka claimed that she asked Payne Hicks Beach to "reconsider whether she might be able to enforce the financial remedy order against the Luna in Miami". However the firm argued that Soroka had explicitly stated she was "not interested in impounding the Luna" and that her stance remained unchanged.
The firm had pledged to "vigorously defend" the claim. Now that the case has been dropped, the Russian must cover both the lawyers' costs and her own legal expenses. Neither Soroka nor her lawyers commented on her decision to drop the claim.
BOAT International will update the story as it develops.
Luna was recently implicated in another high-profile case involving a decade-long tax evasion scheme led by Roman Abramovich.
Read More/Roman Abramovich accused of evading taxes on his superyacht fleet through offshore scheme