Picasso's daughter halts costly legal case

A battle by Paloma Picasso's ex-husband for a half share of the priceless artworks she inherited from her father has collapsed on the eve of a trial which was due to start on Monday.

The biggest divorce money claim brought in the English courts has run up record legal costs estimated at more than £4 million. But after a two year fight, Ms Picasso's former husband, Rafael Lopez-Cambil, has abandoned his claim to half of the collection of Picasso works of art, estimated to be worth as much as £400 million which she received as her share of Pablo Picasso's estate.

Each side will pay its own costs - reckoned to be £1.5 million each - and Mr Lopez-Cambil will have to pay a similar sum for the costs of the Isle of Man trust Ms Picasso set up for her inheritance, whose trustees were a party to the court case.

Argentine-born Mr Lopez-Cambil, aged 51, was a young playwright enjoying some success when he met Ms Picasso, 49, in 1973. The couple lived together for five years in Paris before marrying in 1978.

He went on to play a key role in her establishment as an international style icon and the building up of her multi-million pound worldwide cosmetics, perfume and luxury goods empire.

Ms Picasso described her husband as the "architect" of her career, and in 1994 she gave him a half share of the business, which has a turnover of more than £130 million a year.

The couple lived a jet-set life from a much-photographed duplex apartment on Park Avenue in New York, hung with Picassos, and travelled the world to promote their product line.

But in 1995 Ms Picasso left the apartment, which was sold for £2.25 million, and moved to London, where she set up home in Chelsea, central London. She has a new partner, Eric Thevenet, a French doctor based in Britain.

Ms Picasso's mother, the artist, Françoise Gilot, was the only one of Picasso's mistresses to leave him. She later married Jonas Salk, who invented the polio vaccine.

Ms Picasso last saw her father when she was in her early teens and fought a legal battle to be recognised as one of his heirs.

Many of the pictures she owns, including the Girl with a Skipping Rope, depict her as a child, and the works are said to have huge emotional significance for her.

Her legal wrangle with her former husband has occupied numerous lawyers in the US, France, Switzerland, Netherland, the Antilles and Isle of Man as well as England, running up record legal costs for a divorce case.

In 1997 Mr Lopez-Cambil, who is still involved in the business, sued his ex-wife for £75 million in the US in a dispute over the business, then withdrew the claim 10 months later.

Ms Picasso's solicitor, Helen Ward, of Manches & Co, is one of the "magic circle" of lawyers who handle "big money" divorces. She represented Andrew Lloyd Webber in his divorce from Sarah Brightman. Jeremy Fisher, of Gordon Dadds, another leading divorce firm, was acting for Mr Lopez-Cambil.

The hearing, behind closed doors, would have been the first divorce case to use Livenote, a computerised system designed to handle a mass of complex evidence. It was used in the Maxwell fraud case. Participants have computer screens on which evidence appears instantaneously and can be highlighted on screen.

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