The billionaire Hinduja brothers are locked in a legal dispute in the UK over their family fortune, with a July 2014 letter signed by the four siblings at the centre of the row. The letter, and a related document, had stated that the brothers appoint each other as their executors and that assets held in any one brother’s name belong to all four. The plea to dismiss the letter was filed by Srichand Hinduja the eldest brother against the other three Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok Hinduja.
According to the court ruling, Srichand had sought a declaration that the letter had no legal effect as a will, power of attorney or other binding document, or that the documents had been revoked. The dispute between the U.K.-based family came to a light in a ruling delivered Tuesday by a London judge, who said that the three other brothers, Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok, tried to use the letter to take control of Hinduja Bank an asset that was in Srichand’s sole name. Srichand and Vinoo want the court to rule that the letter should have “no legal effect” and cannot be used as a will, the judge said. She said that Srichand had insisted as early as 2016 that the July letter doesn’t reflect his wishes and that the family’s assets should be separated.
In a statement, the three brothers said that the litigation will have no impact on their business and that the proceedings “go against our founder’s and family’s values.” They said these principles have stood for decades, especially the idea that “everything belongs to everyone and nothing belongs to anyone.”“We intend to defend the claim to uphold these dearly held family values,” the three brothers said in an email.If the claim succeeds then all assets in Srichand’s name to his daughter and her immediate family, including the entire shareholding in Hinduja Bank, the three brothers had said, according to the ruling. The Hinduja family are among the world’s richest. The bulk of their fortune derives from Hinduja Group, the closely held conglomerate whose origins trace back more than a century that today has investments spanning finance, media and health care.