Actor Sean Connery is expected to appear in a Swiss court regarding a 1972 business transaction that he is accused of handling badly.  He is being sued by the family of a developer to whom he lent $4 million over thirty years ago.  He allegedly lent the money to the man, referred to only as Jean-Rene, to develop a property on Cote d’Azur.

In exchange for the cash, Jean-Rene secured the loan with a portfolio of stocks, property, diamonds, and other gems worth $10 million at the time, and which, the family claims now, would be worth over $50 million.  About five years after the deal, Connery called in the loan, but the developer was unable to pay him back because he was having trouble with his business.  The former James Bond actor then allegedly sold some of the assets, including diamonds and a villa on the French Riviera, as re-payment for the loan.

Now, thirty years later, the family is claiming that the assets Connery sold in the 1970s were worth more than the amount of money he lent.  Jean-Rene, who died in 2002, never pursued legal action, but his son, Christian, is now.  Christian evidently wrote several letters to the actor in an attempt to reclaim all profits from the sale of his father’s property, but received no reply. 

According to a family friend, “We are asking for all profits from the diamonds and property to be handed back to us, together with any items used as loan guarantees.”  It is curious that Jean-Rene was able to let it go, but his family has chosen to sue for $50 million.  Connery is nonetheless expected to appear in Geneva next week to answer the charges. 

It is also expected that the legal fees alone in this decades-old legal battle will run into the tens of millions.
 

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