BILLIONAIRES Solomon and Rose Lew have moved to protect their fortune amid bitter disputes involving their children's estranged spouses.
The couple want the Supreme Court to endorse a 12-year-old verbal agreement they say they had with their children to protect part of a $600 million trust.
Documents reveal that Mr Lew gave his children, Peter, Jacqueline - who was single at the time - and Steven, $170 million each from a "Lew Custodian Trust" in 1999.
But the Lews claim in the court action that they entered verbal agreements with their children so that $145 million of each sum was "to be gifted to Solomon and his wife, Rose" and that they would have the "sole beneficial interests in and beneficial claim to the amount so distributed".
Under that verbal agreement, even the remaining $25 million, deposited into each of the children's "loan accounts", remained in the control of Mr Lew, he and his wife assert.
That would mean the children would have "no beneficial interest" in the trust money, putting it out of reach of their spouses.
Mr Lew has been involved in a public row with Jacqueline's ex-husband, Adam Priester, while his son, Steven, is estranged from Sarah Nowoweiski.
Steven Lew and Sarah Nowoweiski are estranged. Picture: Jane Dempster
Documents lodged last week show that in 1999 the Lew Custodian Trust had reserves of $621 million and the billionaire retail king "was advised by his financial advisers that the federal government may introduce a change to the taxation laws such as to impose a tax on the undistributed reserves of trusts".
All three of their children are named as defendants, but the Lews have applied for costs to be awarded only against Ms Nowoweiski and Mr Priester.
The legal move comes just as Mr Priester abandoned plans to take further action on allegations that he was attacked by his father-in-law at Crown casino's VIP carpark.
Mr Lew countered the claims by saying that Mr Priester verbally attacked him as he sat in his car with young children.
He said Mr Priester, a businessman, tried to strike him through the open car window.
The matter has been referred to detectives from Melbourne CIU but no police investigation will be launched until an official complaint is lodged by Mr Priester.
Mr Lew declined to comment yesterday and Ms Nowoweiski and Mr Priester could not be contacted.
