The super-rich guide to DIVORCE

The super-rich guide to DIVORCE 

essential reading for gold digging whore's

If love is a battlefield, splitting up is a war, and the wealthy have a lot to lose. Last month’s landmark ruling makes it harder to hide your assets, but that won’t stop men trying

Has your wealthy spouse suddenly had an inexplicable change of behaviour? Taken a greater interest in the children? Started telling you to follow your dreams? You might want to consider lawyering up. In the cruel world of high-end family law, a change of character can often spell the first sign of an impending split. Your husband may just be planning to divorce you.
You will have seen the good news for those belonging to the British first wives club. In a landmark Supreme Court ruling last month, Alison Sharland and Varsha Gohil were given the chance to claim more money from their former husbands. Why? Because the court ruled their husbands had failed to disclose their true wealth. In Charles Sharland’s case, his wife thought his company was worth £88.3m and his share in it almost £32m, so she accepted a settlement of £10.35m. In fact, he knew the company was being valued at £650m. This, some lawyers say, will open the floodgates for divorcées seeking better settlements from their wealthy exes.
The case has shone a spotlight on the extraordinary world of divorce for the super-rich, where millions of pounds in alimony are won or lost on the strength of a teacher’s reference, or the presence of a mother at football every Saturday morning. According to Peter Burgess, a London-based family solicitor with the firm Burgess Mee, there is an entire industry built on precisely calibrated divorce calculations. “Many people carefully plan where, when and how their marriage should go on the rocks,” he says.
One respected divorce solicitor, who wished to remain anonymous, has worked for plenty of wealthy (typically male) clients and has seen it all. Prior to leaving their wives, his clients will ask him how to minimise the cost of walking out. The response? For six months before serving her with papers, clean up your act. Take her on a romantic holiday, go on dates, support her ambitions (in other words, get her back into work so she won’t be so financially dependent), learn to co-parent (it helps with securing shared custody and reducing child-support payments). In essence, the way to stop her taking you to the cleaners is to act like a better man for a few months.
It sounds like the stuff of fiction (and is, in fact, central plot of my novel A Better Man), but it’s also a bona fide strategy in the shifting sands of high-net-worth divorces, where judgments like the recent Supreme Court decision can suddenly tip the balance in favour of one spouse or another.
The rich generally split up at startling personal expense. So, one of the key concerns for those with assets across several territories will be where in the world to get divorced. This scene-setting is known in the industry as “forum shopping”, and big international finance centres such as London, New York and Hong Kong tend to be, in Burgess’s words, “the most generous toward the lesser earning spouse”, as opposed to smaller countries with fewer super-rich, where courts might take a more jaundiced view of a grasping soon-to-be ex. So if your rich other half suddenly suggests moving the whole family to a villa in Montenegro, beware.
As a rule, legal advice for the wealthier spouse is usually at direct odds with advice for the less wealthy spouse. According to Jeremy Levison, a partner with the London family law firm Levison Meltzer Pigott: “In the past, English law has tended to provide the ‘weaker’ spouse, almost always the wife, with a meal ticket for life. In other words, if there is not enough money for a clean break, the wife can receive lifelong support payment of alimony.” But it doesn’t always work out like that.
In these leading cases, as with Alison Sharland’s, there is often the not-insignificant matter of having to split the family business. Sharland’s husband, Charles, may have hidden the true value of his business during divorce negotiations, but there are other ways to hold onto corporate assets. “A lot of times, wealthy clients will move to separate when the funds of the company they’re controlling are at their lowest ebb,” says Burgess. It’s called the “bad year” divorce strategy, and it works.
Two can play the dirty divorce game, though. There is a long list of counter-strategies for the lesser earning soon-to-be ex. Burgess highlights the strategy of making sure your so-called “lifestyle needs” are gold-plated, a feat that can be accomplished with a few well-timed shopping splurges. “A higher level of spending means a higher level of support,” he says, “So if there’s money there to be spent, a family lawyer might advise his client to spend it while she can in order to set a more favourable precedent.”
Emma Nash, a London-based family lawyer, goes a step further, suggesting that some wily wives are stashing away significant assets in the form of luxury goods such as designer handbags, shoes, furs and jewellery: “There can be a gender disparity in the settlement when it comes to shopping habits. For instance, if the husband has acquired a great deal of art or cars or fine wine, those are usually seen as family assets, things for mutual enjoyment that must be divvied up. The wife’s clothes and handbags are viewed as personal and therefore practical. But the fact is, some of these designer items actually increase in value and can be resold at auction.” How many vintage Hermès handbags equal a Porsche?
On the professional front, the anonymous divorce solicitor recommends women settle in for a long winter’s nap. “If you have a job you don’t like, now’s the time to quit, and if you don’t have a job, keep it that way.” He advises his female clients who are hoping to become the primary carer of the children and get the often hefty maintenance payments that come with it, to dial back their social and professional commitments and get involved with the school and every aspect of their children’s lives. “Get to know the name of the football coach, French tutor, Kumon instructor, whatever,” he says. “We’ll usually get a signed affidavit from the teacher saying, ‘Mrs X seems like a marvellous mother, but I’ve never even met the father.’”
If marriage is the logical conclusion of romance, then divorce is its pragmatic, cut-throat opposite. This is, of course, particularly true of the super-rich. Levison says he has three rules that he offers wealthy clients when they ask his advice on whether to marry: “The first rule is don’t. The second rule is if you must, make sure that your intended is as wealthy as you are and likely to remain so. The third is that, if all else fails, sign a prenup and keep your fingers crossed.” 

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Five signs your rich spouse is planning a cheap getaway

1) He encourages you to go back to work and “follow your dreams” after years of flagrant lunching, redecorating and charity work.

2) He suddenly becomes Superdad and insists on going to every rugby game and ballet recital and signing all the kids’ homework when, previously, he couldn’t even keep their names straight.

3) He puts a sudden stranglehold on your spending, thus threatening your justifiable “need” for an It bag each season.

4) He suggests moving the family out of the UK for a “sabbatical” in France, or any country where family law is less favourable to the less wealthy spouse.

5) He suddenly sets up a complex web of trusts for children and other family members (none of whom is you) and starts socking funds into them.