"Child support rules . . . don't make a lot of sense when applied to people of extraordinary means," she said.
One issue a judge must determine, Blumberg said, is whether Christie, 19, and David, 15, have a legitimate need for their father's financial information, or whether they are seeking it as a ploy to harass him in hopes of receiving an enormous settlement.
Herma Hill Kay, a professor at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, was skeptical of Bren's claims.
"Because you've got a lot of money, you don't need to abide by the disclosure rules? That argument doesn't work," Kay said. "The court has to apply the guidelines any time a judge sets child support. Saying 'I have more' won't take the court off the hook."
According to court papers, Bren and Gold signed an agreement in 1989 after a seven-month negotiation that provided Gold $3,500 per month of general support for each child. The amount was increased to $5,000 a month in 1991, and was revised again later to provide an additional $2,500 a month for private school costs. In turn, she agreed not to go to court, and to keep his relationship with them a secret. According to Bren's lawyers, Bren paid $17,000 a month for each child, tax-free.
Bren promised "always to take care of the children," Gold alleged in court papers. The developer made all payments, but declined her separate requests for a new car and a piano, according to court papers.
In 1997, Gold alleges, Bren stopped seeing the children after she told him over dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel that she "wanted to change their relationship, that she wanted to no longer be intimately involved with him."
Four years later, Gold said she ran into Bren at the Ivy, an exclusive restaurant near Beverly Hills, where he "refused to speak to the children or acknowledge them."
In 2003, Christie and David went to court alleging that Bren broke his promise to support them in a style commensurate with his wealth.
Hillel Chodos, the children's attorney, said Bren tricked Gold into settling on behalf of the children for far less than she could have received in court.
Plugging what is publicly known of Bren's wealth into the state's child support formula, Christie and David each could be entitled to $2.2 million a month, Chodos said.
A fair support level, however, cannot be determined until Bren's children know his net worth and income, he said.
Forbes magazine has estimated Bren's worth at $8.5 billion.
