Rene Benko 's wife Nathalie is fighting for millions .

René Benko’s estranged wife, Nathalie, is locked in a legal battle over millions of euros tied to a disputed financial transaction during his bankruptcy proceedings. The dispute centers around a two-million-euro transfer made to Nathalie in January 2023, which was ruled anfechtbar, subject to reversal, as an unentitled gift under Austrian insolvency law. The case has escalated to the Higher Regional Court in Innsbruck after Nathalie filed a 30-page appeal with her lawyer, Michael Hohenauer, challenging the initial ruling. The initial court decision, issued by the District Court in Innsbruck in May 2026, found the payment to Nathalie Benko to be an “unentgeltliche Zuwendung”, an unremunerated transfer of assets, made within the critical two-year period before the bankruptcy proceedings began. According to the court, this constituted a fraudulent transfer that could be reclaimed by creditors. The court relied on the testimony of the estate administrator, Andreas Grabenweger, who argued that the funds were improperly transferred without compensation. Nathalie Benko contests this interpretation, asserting that the two million euros were not a gift but rather part of her entitled maintenance. She argues that given René Benko’s substantial earnings, ranging from 5.2 to 13 million euros annually between 2019 and 2021—she had a statutory right to receive a significant portion of their family income. Her lawyers claim she received approximately 32 percent of the net household income, translating to an average of 2.68 million euros per year. They insist these payments were not subject to annulment because they fulfilled her legal entitlement to support. At the heart of the dispute lies a supposed verbal agreement from 2018, according to Nathalie Benko. She claims that René Benko and she had agreed that he would provide variable annual sums for real estate investments, an adjustment to their previously agreed monthly maintenance of 10,000 euros, adjusted for his increased earnings. Between 2018 and 2023, René Benko sent a total of 15.5 million euros to his wife under the purpose code “Eigenkapital für Immobilieninvestments.” A handwritten memorandum is alleged to document this arrangement, though the initial court cast doubt on its authenticity, citing the lack of a date and referencing ongoing investigations by the SOKO Signa unit, which suspects the document might have been fabricated. In the appeal, Nathalie’s attorney, Michael Hohenauer, accused the initial court of multiple procedural errors. He pointed out that the court failed to conduct an additional hearing to verify the authenticity of the memorandum, used a report from the SOKO Signa without properly incorporating it into the official record, dismissed the couple’s consistent statements as “einstudiert” despite the absence of contradictory evidence, and questioned the document’s authenticity even though the estate administrator did not challenge it. Hohenauer’s appeal argues that if the court had conducted a thorough evaluation of the evidence, it would have concluded that the couple had reached a verbal maintenance agreement in 2018, which was later documented in the memorandum. He asserts that the document was not created for the purposes of the current litigation but was instead written to formalize a prior oral agreement. If accepted, this would significantly alter the outcome of the case. Legally, the case hinges on a fine distinction: whether the payment constitutes an unentitled gift or a legally mandated maintenance payment. Under Austrian jurisprudence, the determination of unanfechtbarkeit depends solely on the objective existence of a maintenance obligation, not the intent of the payer. Should the Higher Regional Court uphold the appeal, it would represent a setback for René Benko’s creditors. However, if the initial ruling stands, Nathalie Benko will be required to return the two million euros, a sum she has already invested in property, according to available reports.