Princess Haya bint al-Hussein and her then-husband Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum at the Royal Ascot in England.
Reuters
- A UK judge ordered Sheikh Mohammed of Dubai to pay a $734 million divorce settlement to his ex-wife.
- Princess Haya had filed for divorce in London, known as “the divorce capital of the world.”
- Here’s why British courts are so lucrative for wives of the super-rich looking to divorce.
On Tuesday, a UK judge ordered Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the emir of Dubai, to pay a £554 million ($734 million) divorce settlement to his former wife, Princess Haya.
Haya had sued for divorce and custody of her two children after escaping to the UK in 2019.
London, her choice of venue for the divorce filing, is known as “the divorce capital of the world.”
That reputation was galvanized this week by the $734 million payout, which is believed to be the largest ever divorce settlement ever secured in the UK.
The UK court system is the go-to destination for wives of the super-rich looking to divorce, mainly due to a legal tradition which is more favorable than most to the financially weaker party.
Multiple spouses have secured multi-million pound payouts — sometime amounting to 50% of their husband’s assets — by taking advantage of the system which affords judges a huge amount of discretion.
Princess Haya and Queen Elizabeth in Windsor.
Getty
This is a result of the a landmark judgment in 2000 where the concept of the “equal sharing” of assets became the norm. The often-cited case — “White v White” — concerns Martin White and Pamela White, farmers from Somerset who filed for divorce in 1994.
After years of wrangling, the court found that Mrs. White was entitled to 40% of the couple’s £4.6 million assets, even though most of them were in Mr. White’s name.
While the couple were not super-wealthy, the precedent they set has had huge ramifications.
Meanwhile, the sheikh is worth an estimated $4 billion, and Justice Philip Moor ruled in November that he must recompense Haya for her possessions.
Mohammed must pay £13.6 million for Haya’s jewelry, £1 million for haute-couture clothing, £1 million for cars, and £5 million for racehorses.
As Mark Harper, a divorce lawyer at Hughes Fowler Carruthers, told The Guardian in 2015: “If you’re the person with the money then most people will move heaven and earth to avoid a divorce in England because the law is much more generous to, typically, the wife, the person without the money.”
The Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Getty
London has been the scene of some of the financial elite’s messiest and most expensive divorces.
In 2014, the British investor Sir Christopher Hohn was told to pay £337 million — nearly half of his £700 million fortune — to his American wife, Jamie Cooper-Hohn.
Even though Hohn earned the money himself, the court ruled that his business was conducted in “partnership” with his wife, The Daily Telegraph reported.
In 2017, the Russian oligarch Farkhad Akhmedov was told to surrender £453 million — about 40% of his fortune — to his wife Tatiana.
And in an anonymous 2013 divorce case known as “M v M,” a judge declared that 50% of a Russian man’s £107 million fortune should go to his Russian ex-wife, who had filed for divorce in London.
Ayesha Vardag, a divorce lawyer, told The Guardian that the UK was a fantastic jurisdiction for wives seeking divorce.
She spoke to the newspaper after representing Pauline Chai, a Malaysian model, in her divorce from the fashion tycoon Khoo Kay Pen, a case in which Chai won £64 million.
Vardag said: “The principle that there is no discrimination between breadwinner and homemaker is the cornerstone of why the English jurisdiction is seen as a particularly fair one for the financially weaker spouse.”
Lawyers for Khoo told the court that his case had enhanced “the ill-gotten reputation of this country for being the divorce capital of the world.”
Vardag, one of London’s most revered divorce lawyers, told Time magazine in 2018 that the reason so many wives have a legal argument for pursuing divorce in England is that London property is a prized asset for the super-rich.
This means the couple has assets over which a UK court can exert authority.
The UK court system is also favorable for the weaker party as longstanding pre-marriage assets — like inheritance or property bought before the wedding — is treated the same way as assets gained after marriage. This is not the case in many US states.
Haya and Mohammed separated in 2019 after he learned she was having affair with her British bodyguard, the court heard. She fled to the UK that year with her children after learning he was accused of imprisoning one of his other children, Princess Latifa, because she tried to escape.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
