Indian billionaires known for their infamous ‘Taj Mahal’ mansion are suing the world’s most expensive boarding school claiming their daughter was bullied.
Pankaj and Radhika Oswal claim the Institut Le Rosey, an exclusive Swiss school with annual fees of $200,000, failed to adequately protect their 15-year-old daughter.
Legal documents allege she suffered insomnia and anxiety attacks because of taunts from her classmates about her Indian heritage. The school denies the claims.
The couple, worth $3billion, are best known for their enormous half-finished $70million ‘Taj on Swan’ mansion in Perth mocked as an eyesore until it was demolished.
Mr and Mrs Oswal are no strangers to racially-charged lawsuits either, having sued ANZ bank for $2.5billion over the sale of their fertiliser business.
Pankaj and Radhika Oswal claim the Institut Le Rosey, an exclusive Swiss school with annual fees of $200,000, failed to adequately protect their daughter
The couple, worth $3billion, are best known in Australia for their enormous half-finished $70million ‘Taj on Swan’ mansion in Perth mocked as an eyesore until it was demolished
They accepted a settlement of at least $145million in 2016 and immediately left Australia – also accusing the bank of ‘racial bigotry’.
Le Rosey is being sued for the cost of fees for the term the Oswals’ daughter was absent and the cost of the private tutor they hired instead.
They have pledged to donate any damages to an anti-bullying charity.
Mr Oswal claimed the school became a ‘playground for rich students to do as they please’ and that it failed to protect his daughter from being ‘mocked and taunted’
Documents lodged in Switzerland allege the school failed to act when they complained, so her parents withdrew her from lessons after six successful years.
‘We are saddened that it has come to this but, as parents, we are dutybound to act,’ they said in a statement.
Lawyers acting for the school said the Oswals’ claims were ‘false and categorically rejected’.
Aerial view of Le Rosey School in Switzerland, the world’s most expensive school
Housed in a 14th Century chateau, the school’s illustrious alumni include the Shah of Iran, Prince Rainier of Monaco, King Farouk of Egypt and the Duke of Kent.
Located 32km (20 miles) from Geneva, the school boasts its own 38ft yacht in Lake Geneva and decamps to the Alpine resort of Gstaad each January where pupils, known as Roseans, ski up to four times a day.
The campus has its own 1,000-seat concert hall, an equestrian centre with 30 horses and a shooting range.
Students at the school, which has a strict quota system that limits pupils from any one country or linguistic region to ten per cent of its roll, can also use a local 18-hole golf course and karting track.
Sir Roger Moore, Diana Ross and Elizabeth Taylor all sent their children to Le Rosey and former pupils also include John Lennon’s son Sean and Winston Spencer Churchill, the grandson of the wartime Prime Minister.
The Oswals engaged lawyers less than four years after their six-year protracted fight with ANZ finally ended with the huge settlement
What the $70 million mansion was supposed to look like – seven domes, six bedrooms, a temple, an observatory with a revolving roof, and parking for 17 cars
Despite the lavish facilities, Le Rosey’s headmaster has denied suggestions of elitism.
‘No one goes around saying, “I’m richer than you”. It’s completely unsnobbish,’ Rob Gray told The Times in 2015.
‘If people put on airs and graces they wouldn’t survive. We had someone recently from a famous family, and after three days it didn’t work out and he left.’
The Oswals engaged lawyers less than four years after their six-year protracted fight with ANZ finally ended with the huge settlement.
The saga began in 2010 when ANZ claimed to have discovered that the couple had misappropriated $150million from their company Burrup Fertilisers.
A court heard they allegedly spent it on luxury yachts and cars, a farm, private jet fares and the infamous Perth mansion, then fled to Dubai.
Mr Oswal denied misappropriating company funds and argued the payments were partly in restitution of debts connected with construction of the Burrup ammonia plant in Western Australia.
ANZ then appointed receivers to force a sale of the company to repay the Oswals’ $860million debts.
The Oswals argued their 65 per cent stake was undersold in January 2012 for US$560million, and was worth at least double that.
Always hated by the old-money residents of Peppermint Grove – one of the richest suburbs in Australia – the $70 million mansion was never completed
Instead, it stood for years as an ‘eyesore’ among immaculate eight-figure mansions with its concrete shell increasingly covered in graffiti
So they sued the bank for $2.5billion, Ms Oswal claiming ANZ ‘raped her of her wealth’, in what became the biggest trial in Victorian Supreme Court history.
The lawsuit got increasingly more complicated with the couple accusing the bank of racial bigotry and even physical assault.
A senior bank official was accused in court of putting Mr Oswal in ‘an aggressive sort of headlock’ when the pair was alone during an impasse in negotiations in December 2009.
They also alleged Mrs Oswal was forced into signing over her shares to ANZ on threats that she would be sent to jail and that their children would become orphans.
At the same time, the Australian Tax Office pursued the couple for $190million in unpaid taxes and secured an order stopping them from leaving Australia.
The case was finally settled in 2016 for an undisclosed sum and the couple left the country vowing never to return.
The local council constantly tried to secure an order for it to be knocked down and finally it was after many years
ANZ announced $145million would be added to the 2015/16 full year results, but would not reveal how much the Oswals were paid.
‘The $145million figure the ANZ described as “an additional provision charge” does not reflect the size of the settlement,’ the Oswals’ spokesman said at the time.
ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott ‘completely’ rejected the allegations made against the bank’s staff.
‘However, we believe the settlement is the right decision for shareholders bearing in mind the residual risks in a case of this size and complexity,’ he said.
Soon after the payout, the couple settled what was now a $100million tax debt and were allowed to fly out of Australia.
‘Pankaj always felt that the Australian energy sector is one of the most opportunistic areas of its branch in the world, but given the unfortunate negative experiences we have been through here, it has not been motivating,’ Mr Oswal said.
‘However, we hope that this will lead to a change for other business-minded immigrants and lead to reform of the systems that harness such exploitable and capitalising behaviour towards them.’
The couple sued ANZ bank for $2.5 billion, Ms Oswal claiming ANZ ‘raped her of her wealth’, in what became the biggest trial in Victorian Supreme Court history
The Oswals bought the 6,600sqm block for $22 million in 2006 and began building, but the project was already stalled by the time the ANZ saga began
With the couple bailing out of Australia, the unfinished ‘Taj on Swan’ was finally demolished in October 2016.
Mrs Oswal wanted the mansion to be her ‘absolute fantasy’ home, boasting seven domes, six bedrooms, a temple, an observatory with a revolving roof, and parking for 17 cars.
Always hated by the old-money residents of Peppermint Grove – one of the richest suburbs in Australia – the $70million mansion was never completed.
Instead, it stood for years as an ‘eyesore’ among immaculate eight-figure mansions with its concrete shell increasingly covered in graffiti.
It was a popular haunt for teenagers and students to drink and party in the early hours of the morning and constantly pursued in court by the local council.
The Oswals bought the 6,600sqm block for $22million in 2006 and began building, but the project was already stalled by the time the ANZ saga began.
With the couple bailing out of Australia, the unfinished ‘Taj on Swan’ was finally demolished in October 2016
More than 100 people showed up in 2018 to bid on the vacant land after the Taj was knocked down with an opening bid of less than half that.
Bidding started promising, but stopped far shy of $20million when bidding was eventually passed in at $15.6million.
John and Gillett eventually bought it for $17million and plans the build a two-storey mansion were approved by the council.
The house was to feature a large pool and pool house, a basement cellar, underground gym and garage, four bedrooms plus separate guest quarters.
However, like its predecessor it was never built and the site was put back on the market in December, then re-listed in April as two separate plots.