In Monaco, where Giorgos Trangas drew up his private will on February 19, 2018, the mother of battles over his legacy will be fought in successive hearings at the principality’s Court of First Instance until July 4.
The only rivals in this intra-family civil war with trophy properties in various parts of the world, bank accounts in Europe and America, gold bars and safe deposit boxes are the journalist’s son Yannis Trangas and Maria Karra, the deceased’s last wife. It is a civil war that has been going on for 2.5 years without a solution being found mainly due, as the Yannis Trangas side claims, to the stance adopted by Maria Karra, which she denies.
Having lost two trials at the Amarousiou Magistrate’s Court, which concerned the temporary suspension of payments with inheritance money by the co-executor of the will, Ivo Ottavio Fransescon, who did not inform his other co-executor Greek colleague, the widow has chosen to clash head-on now with Yannis Trangas outside Greek territory.
So she filed a lawsuit in the courts of Monaco, seeking to be recognized as an heir under the Law of the Principality without the consent and signature of her son Traga, even though her late husband had chosen Greek law in his will. In the action she brought against Yannis Trangas on 4 April, she asks that she unilaterally accept the inheritance and that the court appoint Francescon or any other person chosen by the Court of First Instance of Monaco as co-executor of the will. She accuses her late husband’s son of blocking the inheritance by his actions by refusing to accept the inheritance and the specific payments that must be made at regular intervals.
For the payments in question, totalling about 400,000 euros, last year alone, Yannis Trangas twice appealed to the Greek courts, claiming that Fransescon, who made them, as one of the two co-executors, failed to inform the Greek notary.
Following this development, Maria Karra chose to resort to the judicial authorities of Monaco, filing a lawsuit against her co-heir.
The Conflict
On June 27, Yannis Trangas, with Nikos Agapinos and Geraldine Gazzo of Monaco as his counsel, will present their legal arguments against the lawsuit filed by Karra. The latter will refute them on July 4 and a week later the hearing will take place at the Court of First Instance of Monaco, which will issue a decision on the same day, the 11th, since the courts in the Principality close for the summer on the 15th.
In her multi-page lawsuit, which is presented by “THEMA”, Maria Karra, who declares herself a trader by profession, accuses the deceased journalist’s eldest son, first pointing out, “The absurd refusal of Mr. Ioannis Trangas to sign the said notarial deed (p.s acceptance of the inheritance) does not allow the plaintiff to know the exact assets of her deceased husband’s estate and therefore cannot close the inventory in order to accept the inheritance.”
The above is categorically denied by the side of Yannis Trangas, who in the last two years revealed properties in America and Europe that Maria Karras’ side denied existed. And it was the widow Tranga’s refusal to include in the inheritance the US properties (in Washington, Miami and Las Vegas, which it was proven through published documents that Karra sold) that forced his son to clash head-on with his last wife.
As stated in the documents of her lawsuit “despite the scheduled appointments, those of 6 February 2023 and 15 May 2023 at 10 am at the notary’s office and 11 am at the Edmond de Rothschild bank for the purpose of opening the safe deposit boxes were systematically cancelled by Mr. Christos Christou (advisor to Mr. Ioannis Trangas). He also denounced the falsity of the reason relied upon by Mr. John Tranga’s lawyer, namely the absence of an agreement between the two executors of the will, namely the contestation of the payment of the invoices on behalf of the estate.”
Payments
Swiss lawyer Ivo Ottavio Franceschon has already been sued by Yannis Trangas for serial disloyalty and money laundering, and for this reason the deceased’s son has applied through the courts to be removed through the courts from being a co-executor of the will, a case that will be heard next October.
As far as Franceschon’s multifaceted action in the matter of the legacy left behind by George Trangas is concerned, the saying “caught with his goat on his back” is apt. His insistence in his capacity as one of the two executors of the will to pay sums approaching 400,000 euros without informing the Greek notary-executor, according to Tragas’ son, caused a total rupture. Yannis Trangas managed to stop these actions through the courts with two interim decisions from the Amarousiou Magistrate’s Court.
“The above payments were approved only by one of the two co-executors – that is, only by Ivo Ottavio Fransescon – and not by the co-executor of the will (ed: this is the Greek notary whom the Swiss claimed to have informed by fax at the time of the AI), nor even by the co-heirs. Worse still, a large part of these payments did not even relate to obligations of the estate in violation of the relevant provisions of the Civil Code and any rule of diligent management…”, says Yannis Trangas in a statement of the case.
As the exchange of correspondence between the co-executors of the will shows, “on May 12, 2023, the Greek notary sent an email to Mr. Fransescon, with notification to the co-heirs’ lawyers, in which he asked him for a full report of his actions up to that point and reminded him that all actions of the executors, including any payments relating to the inheritance, must be made jointly, in accordance with the applicable Greek law.”
Predictably, Franceschon replied to the Greek notary “that he allegedly asked for his approval but received no reply, a claim which the latter emphatically rejects”. According to Yannis Trangas, there is also a translated letter of reply from the Greek co-conspirator, which is why he has proposed him as a witness for the prosecution, in fact as a witness for the duty of truth.
“In fact, Mr. Franceschon admits that in each case he alone provided the authorization to Mr. Jerome Darlighi (ed.: he is the notary in whose office the handwritten will of George Trangas was filed) in order for the latter to give approval in the form of an order to EFG Bank to make payments to various beneficiaries, an action that is in itself illegal and becomes criminal since the payments do not even concern the inheritance”, it is noted by John Trangas in a court document.
“Finally, there were payments of invoices for legal services of the law firm Schmidt & Associes, where the above co-executor works as an external consultant, therefore it follows that Mr. Fransescon commissioned legal services as a co-executor without the involvement of the Greek co-executor in his office and paid himself from the inheritance’s money for services that clearly do not concern the inheritance but Mrs. Karra.”
Despite the fact that the Greek notary expressly forbade Franceschon to make further payments from bank accounts on his own, the latter continued to ignore him. “In fact, he informed him on August 5, 2023 that he must cease all contact with him for the current payments, justifying his decision and essentially accusing the Greek notary completely unfoundedly of leaking information that, according to Mr. Fransescon, is confidential to the Greek press.”
Counterclaims
Yannis Trangas’ side disagrees strongly with the Karras -Francescon positions, since from the day the Amarousiou Magistrate Court prohibited the Swiss from making any payment without the approval of the Greek co-executor, the latter started receiving in his email now the payment requests for various obligations of the inheritance which he approved immediately.
In her lawsuit, Ms Karra rails against her co-heir stressing, among other things, “The settlement of the inheritance has been blocked at its initial stage, due to the refusal of Mr. Ioannis Trangas to sign the notarial deed of establishment of heirs, and the procedure that has been initiated in Greece significantly damages the interests of the inheritance, making it necessary to protect it…”
Next, the Monegasque lawyers for Maria Carra, Charles Lecouillet and Sarah Caminiti-Rolan, ask for “the appointment of a temporary administrator or ad hoc representative that the court will deem appropriate, whose sole task will be to sign the notarial deed drawn up by notary Nathalie Aureglia-Caruso without the intervention of Mr. Ioannis Tranga.”
They also request “in the alternative, that Ms. Carras be authorised to sign the notarial deed herself”, without the intervention of her co-heir.
The Greek State
In closing the lawsuit filed in Monaco, the daughter of George Trangas is asking the court to find that the inheritance has been blocked, that the refusal of John Trangas to sign the acceptance of inheritance is from unjustified to abusive, and that it is urgent to unblock the process of settling the inheritance. The court should, among other things, “authorize Mrs. Maria Karra widow Tranga to sign the notarized document” accepting the inheritance herself, without the intervention of Yannis Tranga, or otherwise appoint an interim administrator.
Finally, she asks that Yiannis Trangas be ordered to pay the sum of 10,000 euros and to pay the costs of her action. The lawyer Nikos Agapinos, who is representing the publisher’s son in this property thriller, made sure to inform the State Legal Council about the latest developments and the three trial dates, so that the Greek State can protect its rights in this case.
According to the latest information, following a request from the Hellenic Tax Authority and in cooperation with the Greek diplomatic authority in France, the Greek State has sought a lawyer to represent the Greek tax administration and defend its legal interests.
As people familiar with the case point out, the audit authorities will follow the development of the case of the appointment of a temporary administrator for the preparation of a list of assets and liabilities of the estate, in the way they consider most appropriate, in order to ensure that their claims are satisfied.
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