Billionaire Greg Coffey sued by New York private chef for unpaid overtime, missed Spain vacation
From having to walk the dog or fly to Spain at short notice, court claims by a chef suing hedge fund billionaire Greg Coffey and wife Ania for unpaid overtime shed light on the secretive world of staffers to the mega rich.
Australian billionaire Greg Coffey is being sued by his former private chef, in a case featuring a swanky six-storey Manhattan townhouse, a $160m Hamptons retreat, travel to Switzerland, children’s baking, dog walking and the missed family holiday in Ibiza that allegedly led to the cook’s termination.
New Jersey chef Jesse DeLorenzo has taken legal action against Coffey – once known as the “Wizard of Oz” for his stellar investment track record – and his family in the New York Southern District Court, alleging he worked hundreds of hours without payment in the US and overseas.
In court documents obtained by The Australian, DeLorenzo alleges he was not paid overtime working for the Coffey family between their Upper East Side mansion and Southampton retreat, and also trips to Switzerland.
DeLorenzo worked for Coffey and wife Ania Coffey between August 2021 and May 2022.
He alleges his employment was terminated after he told the billionaire couple he could not spend three weeks with them on their summer vacation on the Spanish island of Ibiza due to concerns over his mother’s ill health, but only after DeLorenzo had trained a replacement chef.
Greg and Ania Coffey have denied the allegations and have fought the court case since the complaint was first lodged in March 2024.
A defence was lodged in March this year and more recently Coffey’s lawyers have asked for a period of discovery between the parties to be extended until July 8.
That request was made in a letter dated April 10, which also said “the parties … are engaging in settlement discussions.”
The Australian calculated DeLorenzo’s claims to be worth at least $US70,000 ($108,000). Coffey, who now runs his Kirkoswald hedge fund business from an office on New York’s upscale Madison Avenue, had estimated wealth of $1.8bn on the 2025 edition of The List - Australia’s Richest 250.
The 53-year-old Coffey earned his nickname during a stellar run as a trader in London before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, where he managed more than $US410bn for clients of GLG.
He later moved to Moore Capital Management and then retired for a time, before starting Kirkoswald in 2018 and then moving to New York.
Coffey has mostly kept a low profile during his career, but attracted headlines last year when the former first lady of Iceland, socialite and jewellery heiress Dorrit Moussaieff, accused him of causing damage to her flat in London’s high-end Knightsbridge.
Moussaieff had claimed water from a unit owned by Coffey above hers had destroyed a collection of designer clothes and Chanel shoes. But a report in The Times claimed the water was likely to have been caused by someone drilling through a heating pipe in Moussaieff’s apartment.
Coffey also bought the 4680-hectare Ardfin Estate on the Scottish island of Jura in 2008, where he built a luxury 18-hole golf course.
Kirkoswald is named for the street in Sydney’s Mosman, where he purchased a $11.8m mansion in 2005, later buying three additional properties nearby to create a compound.
In a rare public appearance last year, Coffey – a graduate of St Patrick’s College Strathfield – told the New York Hearts and Minds conference he had grown up “in a bad suburb, in a great city (Sydney)” with “an aspiration to own a house on Sydney harbour”.
He had bought the Mosman property with his first “meaningful” bonus.
Neither his lawyers nor DeLorenzo’s lawyers responded to questions sent by The Australian about the New York legal action.
The court documents shed light on the secretive world of the staff who work privately for billionaires, with chef DeLorenzo – who commuted to work daily from Bergen county in New Jersey – claiming how he was constantly “on call” and needed to be ready to go on “extended trip(s) at the drop of a hat” with Coffey’s family.
While he was employed as the family’s private chef, which included preparing family meals and other duties such as “preparing morning tea for AC (Ania Coffey) … and baking for afternoon tea for the children”, DeLorenzo says he was required to undertake other duties.
In court documents he alleges that included “receiving mail and packages, moving furniture, driving to the Coffey’s Southampton Residence to pick things up or drop things off [and] feeding and walking the dog in the mornings and evenings”.
The Coffeys’ Upper East Side six-storey townhouse, which they purchased for more than $US50m ($77m) in early 2021, is more than 16,000 square feet and sits a block from New York’s Central Park.
Their Southampton compound, called Fordune and built for auto mogul Henry Ford II in about 1960, includes about 20,000 square feet of living space sitting on more than 40 acres. It is about 90 miles from the Upper East Side and was reportedly purchased for $US105m ($162m) in late 2021.
DeLorenzo accused the Coffeys of allowing him “little to no downtime” during work days that had him “essentially on call to make tea, snack, run errands, move furniture, do shopping, bake with the children, and take the dog out”.
He says Ania Coffey told him the types of meals that were acceptable and expected routinely. Her express approval was required for every change to the menu, DeLorenzo alleges, and she also “dictated the ingredients or products to buy or use, how to store or handle leftovers, what groceries to buy, when to go grocery shopping or order supplies, what brands of food to purchase, what cleaning products to use, when to serve each meal, and what stores to shop at”.
Upon his hire, DeLorenzo had been told the position would require some international travel as well as travel to the Coffeys’ residence in the Hamptons.
The chef alleges the Coffeys demanded he work a January 2022 weekend at the Hamptons house, but he refused due to an “unforeseen conflict” and offered to prepare catered food for the ahead of time.
He says Greg Coffey “refused to take no for an answer and continuously threatened” DeLorenzo.
“Jesse you do not get to choose where you work … We employed you with very clear set principles and conditions. You don’t get to change them when you feel like it,” DeLorenzo alleges Ania Coffey said to him in another text message during his employment.
DeLorenzo says he was paid an hourly rate of $US54 ($83) by Coffey, and that his agreement called for him to be paid 1.5 times his hourly wage for any hours worked over 40 hours per week.
DeLorenzo says he received no overtime at all, and received only his usual rate of pay for up to 50 hours in a week. For most of the 40 weeks he was employed, DeLorenzo alleges he worked between 62 and 72.5 hours weekly and some up to 97.5 hours including weekends when they all travelled to Switzerland.
In May 2022, DeLorenzo claims the Coffeys told him they planned to spend the summer in Ibiza, Spain, but only required him to attend three weeks of their trip and “further explained [he] would not be compensated for the time they were away thereafter”.
DeLorenzo claims he was unable to spend that time away from his mother, who he says was experiencing serious health issues, and that also explained that he could no longer work the long hours the job entailed.
The Coffeys, he says, hired a replacement chef to go on the Ibiza trip with them and directed him to train the new cook.
By the end of that month, DeLorenzo said he texted his availability to work but never received a response.
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