Revlon chairman loses appeal over claim of Cohen inheritance

Billionaire Revlon chairman Ronald Perelman was handed another defeat Thursday when a state appeals court rejected his claim that his ex-wife was due a share of the inheritance derived from the Hudson News business, upholding a lower court’s decision that his lawsuit was “frivolous.”

The 56-page decision was released as another trial is unfolding in Superior Court in Hackensack, with Perelman’s daughter, Samantha, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars that she says is hers to inherit from Robert Cohen, her grandfather and Hudson News patriarch who died last year at 86.

The appeals court ruling did, however, vacate a lower court’s decision that ordered Perelman’s attorneys to pay nearly $2 million in legal fees to Cohen’s attorneys, returning that to a lower court.

The case that led to Thursday’s decision started with a lawsuit Ronald Perelman filed against Cohen in 2008. Perelman, who was once married to Cohen’s daughter, Claudia, and later became the executor of her estate after she died in 2007, claimed that Robert Cohen had orally promised to give half of his business to his daughter upon his death.

Hudson News, known for its hundreds of stores in U.S. airports and train stations, was a wholesale and retail business founded in the 1920s and owned entirely by the Cohen family. By 2003, its annual sales were around $300 million, and the retail part of the business was sold in 2008 for $805 million.

That case went to trial in Hackensack, and eventually led to further proceedings in which Perelman also challenged the mental competence of Robert Cohen, who was suffering from a debilitating neurological disease at the time.

Cohen won on both counts, with a judge rejecting Perelman’s claim of oral promise. The judge also found that Robert Cohen was mentally capable of dividing his fortune despite his limited ability to walk and talk.

The judge also ruled that the lawsuit was “frivolous” and ordered Perelman’s attorneys to pay $1.9 million to Cohen’s attorneys.

Perelman appealed, but a three-judge appellate panel rejected his claim in its decision Thursday, finding that there was no evidence of an oral promise by Robert to give half of his business to Claudia Cohen.

“We are pleased and gratified to have yet another court rule in our favor as the appeals court did today by rejecting all of Ronald Perelman’s arguments,” said a spokeswoman for James Cohen, Robert Cohen’s son.