What’s the Most Important in Human’s Life? “Family OR Business”

Abstract

The conflict between the L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her daughter, Françoise, demonstrated how toxic family relationships can become when poorly mixed with business and questions of inheritance (Mayoras et al. 2011). The conflict started soon after the father’s death, by the claims of the daughter that the photographer Mr. Banier, a longtime close friend to Bettencourt’s family, is using the mother’s mental frailty to gain more money from her mother, Liliane Bettencourt, the richest women in Europe according to Forbes. The conflict began by raising a lawsuit against the photographer and developed to implicate Liliane Bettencourt and one of Sarkozy’s most important ministers in tax evasion and campaign finance violations. The case shows the importance of communication in conflict resolution.