The co-CEO of a Foster City investment firm — who allegedly makes $8 million a year to help manage $42 billion in clients’ wealth — is accused in a lawsuit by his ex-wife of forging her signature in a “nefarious” scheme to defraud her out of her interest in the company and their home in posh Aspen, Colorado.

The legal action by Anne Harrison against Eric Harrison and his company IEQ Capital alleged that the couple had been married for nearly 20 years in 2016 when he proposed an “extremely unorthodox” tax-avoidance and estate planning strategy to transfer most of the couple’s shared assets into trusts to benefit their two children and others not named in the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Eric was “having extramarital affairs and was considering the possibility that the couple’s marriage might come to an end,” the lawsuit claimed. The alleged scheme was a way to “put himself in the strongest possible financial position in the event the couple divorced,” the lawsuit filed Sept. 3 in San Mateo County Superior Court said.

Eric Harrison did not respond to requests for comment.

Because Eric told Anne the strategy would be “entirely advantageous” to her, and because she “trusted her husband,” she agreed to it, and the trusts were created, the lawsuit said.

It is “virtually unheard of” for couples to put the vast majority of their assets into trusts, particularly in cases such as Anne’s, a homemaker who would lose financial support in case of divorce or Eric’s death.

She is seeking unspecified damages and compensation for alleged losses. Eric did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2019, Eric co-founded IEQ and began managing the couple’s financial affairs together with the company, the lawsuit said. He told Anne that because the firm was thriving and growing, it could get bought, and he predicted a potential windfall of as much as $500 million for the two of them, the lawsuit claimed. He suggested they transfer their shared ownership interest in IEQ into the trusts, the lawsuit alleged.

This time, Anne balked, telling her husband she worried that if they divorced, or Eric died or couldn’t work, her holdings in the firm would provide her with income, the lawsuit said.

Eric, the lawsuit claimed, ignored her concerns and went ahead with the transfer plan.

In June 2019, Eric, or someone at IEQ acting for him, forged Anne’s signature on a document transferring more than 30% of their interest in the company into the trusts, and Eric arranged for an IEQ subordinate to falsely notarize the document, the lawsuit alleged. Eric never told Anne about the transfer, the lawsuit claimed.

A year later, Eric asked his wife if they could transfer about half of their IEQ interest into the trusts, telling her it was “the right thing to do,” the lawsuit said.

Anne at the time didn’t know that nearly a third of their interest in the company had already been transferred into the trusts via her forged signature, the lawsuit alleged. And she firmly opposed the 50% transfer over her concerns about her future security, the lawsuit said.

Eric reassured her they would never divorce, but promised that if they did split, “nothing would change” for her because he would ensure she had access to his $8 million salary and substantial monetary distributions from his ownership in IEQ, the lawsuit claimed. He also allegedly told her their shared interest in the company was worth about $50 million, while telling someone else around that time that their holdings were worth up to a half-billion dollars.

“Eric’s gambit worked,” the lawsuit alleged, and Anne “reluctantly agreed” to sign the transfer.

By 2023, the couple were divorcing, and Anne found that her signature had been forged, and falsely notarized by another subordinate of her husband’s, on a document transferring their home in posh Colorado ski resort Aspen into the trusts, the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit also named IEQ as a defendant, accusing it of “a shocking betrayal of trust and egregious breaches of fiduciary duty” by allegedly prioritizing Eric’s personal gain over the interests of Anne, “who entrusted her financial security to its care.”

IEQ did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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In 2024, Anne discovered that Eric’s promise of financial support in case of divorce had been hollow: He filed court documents saying the couple had not agreed to any future spousal support, the lawsuit alleged.

“Today, nearly all of the assets that were once part of the couple’s community marital estate are now held by the various irrevocable trusts,” the lawsuit said. “Through his IEQ salary and distributions, Eric continues to maintain what is, by any measure, a breathtaking standard of living. By contrast, Anne frequently struggles to make ends meet without emergency loans and must now rent her home from certain of the irrevocable trusts.”