Not a happy subject I agree and I speak with some authority on it, as I was divorced in 1991, but there are a couple of ‘separations' going through the courts at the minute which are causing some mirth and not a little discussion.
Firstly there is a guy called Brian Myerson, a fund manager who made millions running a hedge fund (a fancy way of betting on the stock market) who divorced his wife last year. Being worth some £25 million, he was ordered to pay his wife (sorry, ex-wife), a not inconsiderable £11m, presumably on the accepted basis that as she had lived the good life, she was entitled to continue to live the good life and spend a sum equal to the GDP of a small country each month on the upkeep of her rather well turned out body.
The problem is that as the credit crunch has taken its toll, poor old Mr Myerson’s business has crashed and the shares he rather shrewdly kept in his company as his part of the deal, are now virtually worthless, so he’s gone to the Court of Appeal in London to have the original payout slashed.
As his lawyer was presenting his ‘down and out’ client’s changed circumstances (he’s down to his last £5m m’lords), one of the judges was heard to mutter, ‘Oh what a rum do’, which is exactly what you’d expect to hear from one of these bewigged, octogenarians who are totally divorced (sorry) from reality.
One other aspect of this case which needs to be mentioned is that the lawyer retained by Mrs Myerson, is one Nicholas Mostyn, the husband of a girl who used to work with me in IBM. Nick Mostyn is one of the top divorce lawyers in London, frequently achieving multi-million payouts for his female clients and when Lucy (his wife) turns up at our annual IBM reunions, I have to warn her not to impart, even if asked, alimony advice to any of the females there – particularly J!
The second case, which I find gives me a severe case of schadenfreude, is that of Formula 1 supremo, Berni Ecclestone. Good old Bernie made £2.4 billion, yes billion, by stitching up the TV rights to the Formula 1 motor races, and then selling them. In a desperate attempt to keep the taxman away from his millions, sorry, billions, he transferred most of his fortune to his statuesque wife, Slavica, who at 6ft 2 in, positively towers over her 5ft 4 in husband of 24 years (see picture). Poor old Bernie was at a motor race somewhere when the news broke that his wife had moved out and wanted a divorce, stating ‘stress and anxiety’ as the reason. She then managed to get a 58 second divorce for his ‘unreasonable behaviour’ without Bernie knowing anything about it and is angling to keep most of his, sorry, her, fortune. They say that possession is 90% of the law and therefore we must accept that she’ll get to keep 90% of £2.4 billion.
I suppose the ‘unreasonable behaviour’ was based on the fact that he only transferred ‘most’ of his £2.4 billion instead of the whole lot!
Finally – see Billy Connoly singing about D..I..V..O..R..C..E at the following link…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZzGxReXmo
1 comment:
Awe, thanks for your comment Tom! That's so weird about the strange Russian girl...you never know who you'll find blogging I guess :) (I did change my blog URL a little while ago, that's probably what did it!) And thanks for the birthday wishes! :)
Wow I can't imagine getting a divorce payout that big! And oh my goodness, I can't believe how much taller that wife was from her (ex) husband! That's absolutely crazy. This was a great post, Tom (but pretty sad actually...though now once again I feel like I'm more cultured about whats going on places other than the US!).
Oh, and I will definitely be checking out your blog from July 08! I'm really excited :)
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