EVER since they arrived in London more than ten years ago, Russia born businessman Alexander Krasner and his wife Ella have risen effortlessly up the social scale, even dining with Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.
Indeed, Charles was so taken with the glamorous Ella - who does charity work with Lady Helen Taylor and has twice chaired the prestigious Red Cross Ball - that he was moved to comment on her £40,000 John Galliano gown.
And when Ella, 39, wrote a well-received coffee table book about the interiors of Russian houses, Nancy Dell'Olio was at the launch party in the De Beers jewellery shop on Old Bond Street.
But now the Krasners are at the centre of an undignified courtroom wrangle over their fine Belgravia townhouse and need their society connections more than ever.
On Monday, Krasner, 49, is appealing in the High Court against the verdict of an earlier hearing in which he was accused by a judge of acting 'dishonestly' in the purchase of his house.
The case follows a £6.5 million loan made to Krasner by his former boss, fellow Russian Vitaly Machitski, in order for him to buy the London home last year.
Machitski wants his money back, but his one time protege claims it is part of what he was due for his shares in a Romanian aluminium company they ran together. It was also revealed that a letter to support a £3.5 million mortgage on the Krasners' property was misleading.
The complex and murky case, which has seen Krasner's debts rise to £10 million, is engrossing London's normally secretive community of wealthy Russian oligarchs.
Krasner, however, is determined to clear his name. 'I admit some of my papers were not in order last time,' he tells me carefully.
A friend from their charity circuit tells me: 'Alexander and Ella are a lovely couple. It would be wrong to give the impression they owe money here, there and everywhere.' The couple, who have three sons, also have a lavish home in the South of France •