THE one-time owner of The Shard has been ordered to pay over £120,000 in legal costs after making his son the face of a “scandalous” €53.3m claim dismissed by the Royal Court as an “an abuse of process”.
Former billionaire property developer Simon Halabi was found to be the “catalyst for” and “instigator of” a “vexatious” claim brought by his son Jacob concerning the 2019 sale of a French chateau and vineyard belonging to the family.
His son, as the plaintiff in the case, accused Jersey private trust company Suntera Global of “mishandling” the transaction and selling the property for substantially under market value.
In August 2023, the Halabi family introduced “allegations of the utmost seriousness” against the trust company, which included inferences that they had “acted deliberately and dishonestly” on the basis of “undisclosed conflicts of interest or collateral motives”.
The fraud and dishonesty claims were ultimately struck out in June 2025 by Master of the Royal Court David Cadin for being “scandalous, frivolous, vexatious or abusive” and disclosing “no reasonable cause of action”.
In a judgement published recently in relation to costs, Master Cadin judged Simon Halabi to have “left” his 24-year-old son Jacob “alone to answer for the failings” in a case with “more than an element of litigation by proxy”.
The 68-year-old Syrian-British businessman was therefore deemed “jointly and severally liable” with Jacob and ordered to pay legal compensation in the sum of £123,663.81.
The order for costs represents yet another blow for Mr Halabi, who in 2007 appeared at number 14 on the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated total wealth of £3 billion.
But the tycoon, formerly a major one-third stakeholder in the iconic London skyscraper The Shard, was made bankrupt in 2010 after failing to repay a £56 million bank loan.
A Royal Court judgement from 2015 then revealed that the former billionaire was locked in bitter divorce proceedings with his now ex-wife Urte concerning the control of family trusts.
Mr Halabi has been forced to sell of a significant portion of his property-based business empire, including the Château Cantenac Brown estate, which is located in the Bordeaux wine region and was bought by him in 2005 for a reported €72 million.
According to written evidence supplied to the Royal Court, the ex-billionaire put the value of the claim relating to the “mishandled” sale of the chateau “at between €32.3 and €53.4 million”.
He wrote that it would be “obvious” to those responsible for the sale – which comprised Suntera Global Trustees and six individual directors linked to the trust company – that he “would be on the warpath”.
“They had just cost my family a massive amount of money,” he stated.
Mr Halabi urged the “honourable Royal Court of Jersey” to take into account “the significance of this case for myself and my family”.
On 20 July in the Royal Court, Master Cadin judged the litigation which was “pursued for [Simon Halabi’s] benefit and that of his family – to be “wholly unsuccessful”.
He concluded: “In my judgement, Simon Halabi is, in all but name, a co-plaintiff in this litigation.
“The proceedings having been wholly unsuccessful, his involvement should as a matter of reason and justice be reflected in the orders for costs that have been made against the plaintiff.”
