Waiter forced to support his heiress ex-wife
A London waiter who has been ordered to pay maintenance to his multi-millionaire ex-wife today appealed against the "manifestly unjust" decision.
Francesco Traversa's marriage to Italian heiress Carla Freddi ended in tears after 20 years.
He had been a restaurant worker from a modest background and she is an independently wealthy member of a family of industrialists with a personal fortune estimated at up to £4.2million.
But when they divorced an Italian court recognised their pre-nuptial agreement and ordered him to pay up despite the gulf between their wealth.
Now Mr Traversa has been forced out of his home, owes his ex-wife £57,000 and has had to go back to serving at tables, his counsel told the Appeal Court in London.
Having been advised that he had "no remedy" in the Italian courts, Mr Traversa is throwing himself on the mercy of English judges.
If he fails he faces a legal bill of an estimated £65,000 on top of his debts to his ex-wife.
Mr Traversa, 51, married 45-year-old Ms Freddi in 1987 and moved to London where the couple had two children.
The first of a series of restaurants in the capital, financed with her family money, opened in 1993.
In 2008 Ms Freddi divorced Mr Traversa, of Palmers Green, in an Italian court, which ordered him to leave the matrimonial home in London where he had lived for eight years.
Frank Feehan QC told the court Mr Traversa was "required to pay maintenance to his wife, despite her enormous economic advantages".
He asked Lord Justice Thorpe, Lord Justice Sedley and Lord Justice Rimer, to intervene on the grounds that the Italian court had been grossly unfair.
However, Justin Warshaw, for Ms Freddi, argued the English courts have no right to rule on the dispute as both are Italian by birth.
He added that, in any event, the pre-nuptial agreement entered into by the pair before they married ought to bar Mr Traversa from having any of his wife's property.
The Appeal Court judges reserved their decision until a later date.
