The bitter divorce battle of an American socialite has come to London, as a businesswoman asks a British judge to force her husband to pay her divorce settlement out of his city assets.
Former model and ballerina-turned racehorse owner, Sheila Rosenblum, and her assets trader husband, Daniel Rosenblum, led a wealthy and glamorous lifestyle before they split in 2014.
The couple were “a staple of high society”, enjoying a $21m Manhattan apartment, described as being “like something out of an F.Scott Fitzgerald story”, as well as a sprawling estate in the Hamptons.
Their duplex penthouse on Park Avenue was described in sales material as a “chateau in the sky…inspired by the luxuries of another era”.
The pair, who have two children, are now separated.
And now in a writ lodged at London’s High Court, Ms Rosenblum’s lawyers have detailed how the couple waged legal war in the US courts and are set to fight a second round over here.
The writ states that a US court ordered Mrs Rosenblum’s husband to pay her over $5.5 million (£3.9m) after she sued him in November last year.
The writ also claims that over $5 million – £3.6m – of that “debt” still “remains unsatisfied”.
Ms Rosenblum believes that her husband has substantial assets within the UK and he has a business address in London Bridge Street, in the City.
And she is now asking British judges to force her husband to pay up.
After an early career as a successful model and ballerina training at the Royal Ballet School in London and modelling for Ford models and Wilhelmina Ms Rosenblum now runs Lady Sheila Stables, an all-female thoroughbred race horse syndicate.
Her filly, La Verdad, won last year’s top female sprinter crown and raked in over $1.4m in prize money.
She was born in Switzerland but moved to the US at the age of four, and was 31 when she married her husband. They have two teenage children.
Ms Rosenblum is no stranger to court battles. In 2010 she became embroiled in a protracted international dispute over the purchase of a horse.
Before they split, according to American reports, Mr Rosenblum had also been involved in a legal dispute relating to their $21m Park Avenue dream pad.
Mrs Rosenblum’s English lawyer, Jolyon Martin Connell, of Farrer & Co, states in the writ: “On 18 November 2015 Ms Rosenblum obtained against Mr Rosenblum a judgement of the Supreme Court of the state of New York of the sum of $5,550,684.93.
“The New York Judgement was final and conclusive.
“The New York judgement does not represent a penalty or fine or include any claim for unpaid taxes or include any element of punitive or multiple damages.
“Mr Rosenblum submitted to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the State of New York by participating voluntarily in those proceedings.
“Sums totaling $501,876.38 have been collected by Ms Rosenblum in partial satisfaction of the New York Judgement debt (but) the debt remains unsatisfied.
“Ms Rosenblum therefore claims a debt against her husband amounting to £3,589,377.94 as at January 22 2016, together with interest and costs.”
Mr Rosenblum’s defence to the claim was not available from the court and the contents of the writ have yet to be tested in evidence before a UK judge.
When contacted by the Telelgraph, Mr Rosenblum’s US lawyer Larry Carlin said he was “unable to comment on pending litigation”.
Holly Tootill, a family lawyer with JMW Solicitors, said the case highlighted increasingly common complications caused by international relationships.
“There can often be something of a gulf between obtaining an order entitling a spouse to certain assets and translating that into cash.
“Some ex-husbands and wives believe that securing a court order means that the hard work has been done.
“However, even a very large order is worth very little if it can’t actually be enforced.
“It can be extremely difficult to do that when there are assets spread all over the world.
“That’s something which is more frequently an issue because of the growing number of individuals from different countries who set up home together.
“A proportion of these cases that we have handled in the recent past illustrate how much harder it can be to have UK court orders enforced in some countries than in others.”
