HELGA STOECKERT, co-owner of the Four Seasons Hotel, who was involved in Jamaica's first palimony suit, is not giving up her fight to get a stake in the assets of her former lover, the late Paul H. Geddes, co-founder of Desnoes and Geddes (now Red Stripe Limited).
Last week Thursday, she filed a motion in the Court of Appeal Registry seeking leave to go to the United Kingdom Privy Council to challenge the Court of Appeal ruling of October 30 that she was not entitled to the £200,000 (approximately $14 million) in a joint bank account in the names of Stoeckert and Geddes. The Supreme Court had ruled in August last year that the money belonged to the Geddes' estate and the Court of Appeal upheld the ruling.
The money is in an account at the Royal Bank of Canada Europe Ltd., Lon-don, England, which was opened in 1983 in the names of Paul H. Geddes and Helga Stoeckert.
Stoeckert, 68, and Mr. Geddes were lovers for 32 years, when he ended the relationship in April 1991 and later that year, married Margie Piper, an American who was 36 years old at the time.
In 1992, Miss Stoeckert filed a palimony suit against Mr. Geddes, contending that there was an agreement, arrangement, understanding or common intention between her and Mr. Geddes that she should have a beneficial interest in his assets. Mr. Geddes denied that there was any such intention.
The Supreme Court awarded Miss Stoeckert one-sixth of Mr. Geddes's assets. Mr. Geddes appealed and won. Miss Stoeckert took the matter to the United Kingdom Privy Council which ruled last year that she was not entitled to any of the assets. The Privy Council did not make any ruling in relation to the money in the bank account in London.
AUGUST RULING
Margie Geddes, executrix of Geddes' estate, applied to the Supreme Court for an order that the money in the London bank should go to the estate. Justice Norma McIntosh, after hearing submissions from attorney-at-law Michele Champagnie of Myers, Fletcher and Gor-don, ruled in August last year that the money be-longed to the estate.
Stoeckert contended on appeal that the judge erred in ruling that the question of the legal and beneficial ownership of the joint account was decided by the Court of Appeal.
Stoeckert and Geddes estate had made claims for the money in the bank, but the bank is saying that it needs a court order as to who should get the money.
Mr. Geddes, one of the creators of the world famous Red Stripe beer, died in June 1999 at age 89, leaving his widow, Margie, as the executrix of his $600 million estate.
