Lying sisters face pounds 14m bill after losing legal bid for banana

TWO sisters were branded liars and ordered to pay more than pounds 14million legal costs when a High Court judge today threw out their claim for control of their family's pounds 1billion banana business.

Maria Elena De Molestina and Isabel Noboa lost to their brother, Alvaro Noboa, a billionaire and candidate for the presidency of Ecuador.

Their fight, which has been waged in courts in Ecuador, New York and the Bahamas, has been described as one of the most costly family feuds in British legal history. The case was finally heard in London under a "selection" clause governing complicated cases.

The sisters claimed that their brother gained control of the family's Ecuadorean banana business, Fruit Shippers Limited, by fraud after their father Luis died in 1994.

But Mr Justice Langley ruled that they had lied and had brought a dishonest claim for more than pounds 250million in damages. The judge ordered them to pay their brother's costs of more than pounds 5million and pounds 9.25million costs of the various companies involved.

The judge said the evidence of the sisters was "starkly exposed as inconsistent, lacking coherence, and wholly unreliable". He said of Maria: "Her motive is money and perhaps an injured sense of her own ability and importance and an irrational conviction that her cause is just."

Of Mr Noboa, who has been nicknamed the "Banana Baron of Ecuador", the judge said he was "an impressive and attractive witness" who "gave his evidence in a forthright manner".

Mr Noboa gave evidence from Ecuador via video link as he was campaigning in the presidential elections. Neither the sisters nor their brother were in court for the judgment.

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