Mukesh Ambani vs Anil Ambani

India’s most prolific business family was entangled in an unsavoury family feud when Brothers Ambani engaged in a public battle for control over their late father Dhirubhai’s Reliance Industries, the country’s most successful business conglomerate worth billions of rupees. Although the tension was palpable between the two, things were prevented from getting ugly when their mother Kokilaben brokered a court-approved peace settlement that entailed dividing up the family businesses. The entity headed by Mukesh Ambani is now referred to as Reliance Industries Limited whereas Anil Ambani’s group has been renamed Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. At last count, Mukesh is well above brother Anil in the richie rich list.

The Birlas vs RS Lodha

Calcutta was witness to a family feud not so long ago when Priyamvada Birla, the wife of the late MP Birla, left behind a will bequeathing property running into thousands of crores to her trusted aide RS Lodha. The Birlas cried foul, alleging that the will was fake and many branches of the family came together to fight a legal battle against the “outsider”. An unfazed Lodha stood his ground. The protracted legal battle is still doing the rounds of court rooms. It’s Advantage Lodha

Amisha Patel vs Amit and Asha Patel

Bollywood actress Amisha Patel caused an uproar a few years ago when she took her parents to court, accusing them of “mismanaging” her assets amounting to Rs 12 crore. Dirty linen was washed in public with Amisha’s parents blaming her “close friend” Vikram Bhatt for the mess. The parents and the daughter remain estranged till date. Similarly, yesteryear actress Nutan had sued her mother Shobhana Samarth for mismanagement of her finances. The legal battle between mother and daughter lasted several years.

Anna Nicole Smith vs E Pierce Marshall

She made news when as a 26-year-old, she got married to oil billionaire J Howard Marshall, then 89.And then for more than a decade after his death, former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith battled her much-older billionaire stepson, E Pierce Marshall, for the right to inherit the US $1.6 billion estate of her late husband, to whom she was married for a little more than a year. The case dragged on for years, with Smith even joining forces with Marshall’s other son James Howard Marshall III, who had been disowned by his father. In a bizarre twist of fate, E Pierce Marshall and Anna Nicole Smith died within months of each other. The court case, eclipsed by the controversy over Smith’s daughter’s paternity, is still pending.

Liesel Pritzker vs the rest of the Pritzker family

Liesel Pritzker, a small-time actress who starred in movies like A Little Princess and Air Force One, became one of the wealthiest women in the US after the settlement of a nasty legal dispute with the rest of her family, which also included her father. Liesel and her brother Matthew now each control fortunes of about US $450 million. The Pritzker fortune, which started with patriarch Nicholas Pritzker more than a century ago and is estimated at more than US $15 billion, includes the 209-hotel Hyatt management chain, commercial real estate, industrial businesses and a 25 per cent stake in Royal Caribbean cruises. The family fortune was split 11 ways with 10 more Pritzkers joining the Forbes 400 list — a record for any family.