Heir grievances: inside the Bulgari family’s multimillion-dollar feud

How did the three once-close sisters of the Bulgari jewellery family come to fall out over an inheritance from their mother – and air their grievances in the New York courts? Anne Mcelvoy meets Ilaria Bulgari to find out

It seemed like a simple solution to a very high-net-worth concern. Shortly after her divorce from the jewellery tycoon Nicola Bulgari in 2005, Anna Bulgari created a trust drawn from the proceeds of her settlement. The Anna Bulgari Family Trust was intended to provide a steadily lucrative income for the couple’s three daughters, Veronica, Ilaria and Natalia, securing her daughters’ independence after her death.

Bulgari is a name so intricately entwined with fine jewellery that it barely needs introduction. Alongside his brothers Paolo and Gianni, Nicola Bulgari had built up the brand from a business begun by his silversmith grandfather, Sotirios, in Greece. Sotirios moved to Rome and opened his first store – changing his name from Voulgaris to Bulgari – in 1884. His company’s sparkling creations were coveted by Grace Kelly and Liz Taylor, who called the boutique on Via Condotti ‘that nice little shop’. The 1970s were the beginning of the epoch of Italian style dominance, when every prominent shopping avenue sparkled with the storefronts of Gucci, Ferragamo and Bulgari.

In 1972 Nicola and Anna had moved their family from Italy to New York with a single aim in mind – expansion. Nicola would later recall: ‘We were stuffing the jewellery in our suitcases to sell it in suites across America.’ Anna, meticulous and sociable, made connections that boosted Bulgari’s profile across the US. Only a few years after arriving in New York, the family opened its gargantuan Fifth Avenue store, Andy Warhol calling it a ‘museum of contemporary art’.

The Bulgaris were soon established

on the Manhattan scene: Anna, a stern, striking presence, Nicola, with his patrician shock of hair, and watchful bluegrey eyes, and three daughters – attractive, well educated, popular, and heirs to vast wealth. In 2011, when Bulgari was sold in a €3.7 billion deal to French conglomerate LVMH, the fortunes of the family looked blissfully secure.

Today, however, the prospect of a painful and public legal battle hangs over the dynasty. Anna Bulgari died in 2019 and the vast settlement she left is at the centre of a showdown: a case brought by Ilaria, 56, the middle sister, against her elder sibling Veronica, 58, who has overseen the trust.

Ilaria claims Veronica has failed in her duties as a trustee and kept information from her, diluting their mother’s wish that the daughters’ portions of the trust should be handled equally. She also alleges that she was forced to cede control of her finances to Veronica and her father, now 82. Out of a financial arrangement intended to remain confidential, the family matter has grown into a bitter legal conflict, filed in the high-profile Southern District court in New York as Bulgari v Bulgari.

There are strong echoes of Succession – this time with women in the key roles. The battle shines a light on the convoluted workings of a family who seemed to have it all – the breathtaking jewels, impeccable taste in art and classical music, and a web of property reaching from Milan and Tuscany to New York and the gold-plated enclave of Gstaad in the Swiss Alps.

The clash has moved from money to personal fallouts, unleashing suspicion of Ilaria’s life partner Jan Boyer. In a counter-suit, Veronica alleges that