ATLANTA - The ex-wife of gun mogul Gaston Glock Sr. is asking a federal judge in Atlanta to help her get financial records for use in legal proceedings in Austria related to the couple's divorce.
Helga Glock, 77, said she needs financial data from her ex-husband's American companies to calculate the sum her husband should pay her for the Austrian equivalent of alimony based on his worldwide income, according to the Daily Report. Austrian courts ruled that Gaston Glock was at fault for the failure of the marriage, Helga Glock's lawyers said in court filings. Gaston Glock, 83, left his wife of 49 years in 2011 for a woman 50 years younger, Helga Glock's affidavit said.
Papers filed in federal court in Atlanta said Helga Glock needs help from American courts because her ex-husband "has erected a complex and opaque structure of holding companies and trusts for Glock affiliated entities through the world . and has moved what Ms. Glock contends are marital assets" beyond the reach of the Austrian courts.
Helga Glock's lawyers are seeking financial documents from Glock's North American headquarters in Smyrna and from other U.S.-based companies called the Glock Group, including at least three Georgia-based firms.
She also wants to recover company stock that she held in Austrian parent company Glock GmbH and she's looking for other marital assets and real estates that she says Gaston Glock transferred to "illusory trusts" he controls that were supposed to benefit her and the couple's children.
Gaston Glock was worth billions of dollars when he left his wife, she said. The patent and licensing rights for his signature pistol probably generate 46 million euros annually, Helga Glock estimated.
Helga Glock's lawyers in Atlanta, Andrew Flake and Edward Marshall, declined to comment through her Atlanta spokesman, David Rubinger.
"This is a family that is deeply wounded," Rubinger said of Helga Glock and her children. "Helga Glock is not doing this for herself, she is doing it for her family."
Lawyers for various Glock companies in the U.S. could not be reached for comment.
Helga Glock likely has "a very strong claim," Peter "Bo" Rutledge, a professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, told the Daily Report. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta "has developed a bit of a reputation for being especially friendly" to petitions like hers, he said.
The Glocks married in 1962, and Helga Glock said she helped her husband turn the metal shop in his garage in an Austrian village into the international gun manufacturer. Until 1999, she owned 15 percent of the parent company's shares and her husband owned 85 percent, court papers said.
After one of Gaston Glock's corporate lieutenants tried to have him assassinated that year, the couple created a private trust to provide for their children and secure the family's ownership of the international conglomerate. The trust holds 99 percent of the shares of the parent firm, according to court papers. Eight years later, the couple established a second trust to benefit them and their heirs.
Glock began an affair with a woman at the clinic where he was being treated after suffering a stroke in 2008. The woman "kept Helga Glock and other family members away from Glock Sr. with the warning that such contact could result in a further stroke and potentially his death," Helga Glock's court filing said. Gaston Glock soon broke off contact with his wife, his three children and his grandchildren, according to court papers.
Helga Glock alleges that her ex-husband began to push his family out of the business and began to move and hid personal and corporate assets in anticipation of filing for divorce, according to her court filing.
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