The wife of a Russian born billionaire oil and gas trader has been awarded £453 million in a recent divorce settlement. Hailed to be the largest divorce settlement recorded, the award represents around 41% of the couples assets.
The couple met in 1989 and married four years later. They had two children together both of which are now over 18 years old. The wife was a “hands on” mother who raised the children (without the assistance of a nanny) and looked after the household whilst the husband became very successful building up a business in the energy sector so much so that, in 2012, he sold his shares in a Russian company for $1.375 billion.
The wife’s position was that the assets in this case totalled just over £1 billion. She argued that all of the assets had been amassed during the course of the couples’ marriage and were, therefore, matrimonial. She argued that, given the length of their marriage, they had both made equal contributions, the husband in pursuing his business interests and the wife in her contributions towards the welfare of the family. She said that the wealth should therefore be shared between them.
The husband decided two weeks prior to the final hearing, for reasons unknown, that he was not going to contest the proceedings, however, he had argued that he had been wealthy before the marriage in 1993 and that he had made a “special contribution” to the creation of the wealth during the marriage amongst other more complex legal points.
Mr Justice Haddon-Cave ruled that the assets had been amassed during the course of the marriage and that the “sharing principle” applied to the wealth of the family recognising the wife’s contribution as homemaker as equal to that of her husbands. He accepted the wife’s valuation of the assets and ordered that she should receive £435,000,000.
He did not accept that the husband had made a “stellar contribution” that should be recognised in the award. Instead, he stated that the wife was “keeping the home fires burning” allowing her husband to travel and pursue his business interests. The Judge rejected the husband’s evidence that he had had wealth prior to the marriage which should be ring-fenced. The husband’s only evidence on this point was that he had purchased the couples’ first home for £700,000. The Judge was firmly of the view that this contribution had “mingled” with the matrimonial assets and formed part of the matrimonial pot.
Largest divorce settlement – Comment
This is undoubtedly a “big-money” case in which the wife received a tremendous reward far in excess of what she required to meet her needs. It does, however, uphold the principles applied by the Court in all cases of this type showing, on a fairly epic scale, that the starting point is equality and that there has to be a significant reason to depart from this.
The Court’s overall objective is “fairness”. The role of homemaker and that of bread winner are to be seen as equal. Any contribution to justify a departure from equality would have to be “of a wholly exceptional nature” to the extent that it would be unfair for it to be ignored. Finally, contributions made prior to the marriage which have mingled and have become indistinguishable from matrimonial assets will still form part of the “matrimonial pot”.
Although this very wealthy woman did not receive 50% of the assets, she received exactly what she asked the Court to award her. The explanation for the Court’s 9% departure from equality is a story for another day!
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Emma Davies is a specialist Family Law Solicitor at Nelsons. If you need advice on divorce or any other family related matter, please contact Emma and she will be happy to discuss your circumstances in more detail and give you more information about the services that Nelsons family law solicitors can provide.
Emma can be contacted on 0800 024 1976 or contact us via the online form.